A Ku-band integrated receiver front end

A Ku-band integrated receiver front end has been fabricated on 20-mil aluminum oxide substrates. The receiver consists of a balanced mixer and a Gunn oscillator within an area of 0.300/spl times/0.325 inch. The performance of both packaged and unpackaged microstripline receivers is described. Using external RF tuning, a noise figure of 9 dB at 18 GHz was obtained. A higher Q Gunn oscillator design is needed for more reliable single-frequency operation.