Evolution of Broadband Amplifier Design: From Single-Stage to Distributed Topology

The phrase
distributed amplification
(DA) was first introduced by Ginzton, Hewlett, Jasberg, and Noe in an article published in the August issue of the 1948 Proceedings of the IRE
[1]
. The authors presented “a new principle in wide-band amplifier design.” They then went on to explain that “by an appropriate distribution of ordinary electron tubes along artificial transmission lines, it is possible to obtain amplification over much greater bandwidths than would be possible with ordinary circuits.