Broadband (1-16 GHz) Balanced MMIC GaAs pHEMT LNA for Radio Astronomy Applications

A broadband (1-16 GHz) balanced MMIC low noise amplifier (LNA) using 100-nm GaAs pHEMT technology is presented in this paper. The proposed topology has been designed and manufactured under and OMMIC or UMS process with a drain voltage of 3,5 V. The simulated gain is 28 dB in the whole bandwidth and the DC power consumption is 280 mW. The simulated room-temperature noise performance is lower than 1.25 dB from 1 to 14 GHz and lower than 1.5 dB in the whole bandwidth while its figure of merit (FOM) is 86 (GHz/mW).