W-band MHEMT MMIC LNA

Excellent noise and gain have been demonstrated at W-band with metamorphic HEMTs MMICs. The performance of the low noise amplifier (LNA) MHEMTs is very close to that of InP HEMTs on InP substrate. The material structure of the MHEMT has been developed using an AlGaAsSb lattice strain relief buffer layer on a GaAs substrate. DC characteristics of the 0.1 x 36 mu m devices have shown typical extrinsic transconductance (g(m)) of 1200 mS/mm to 1300 mS/mm depending on Indium mole fraction in the channel. Small-signal S-parameter measurements performed on the 0.1 x 36 mu m devices exhibited an excellent f(T) of 225 GHz and Maximum Stable Gain (MSG) of 12.9 dB at 60 GHz and 10.4 dB at 110 GHz. The 3-stage W-band LNA MMIC exhibits 4.2 dB noise figure with 18 dB gain at 82 GKz and 4.8 dB noise figure with 14 dB gain at 89 GHz.