A 23-31 GHz gallium nitride high-robustness low-noise amplifier with 1.1-dB noise figure and 28-dBm saturation output power

A 23 to 31 GHz low-noise amplifier (LNA) based on 0.1-mu m gallium nitride (GaN) on silicon (Si) microwave monolithic integrated circuit process is presented in this work. Three-stage cascade topology was used in the LNA design with chip area of 1.9 x 0.8 mm(2). The measured linear gain is 22 to 27 dB with low input and output return loss. The noise figure (NF) was measured with cold source methodology, which is 0.93 to 1.36 dB across the working frequency band. The power characteristics were measured, which indicate that this LNA has 1-dB compression point output power (P-1dB) of 23 dBm and saturated output power (P-sat) of 28 dBm. The measured output-referred third-order intercept point (OIP3) was at 34 dBm level, which indicates the high linearity of this LNA. To inspect the robustness, 30 dBm continuous wave input power was injected into the working LNA for 5 minutes, no obvious degradation was found after stress. Compared with the traditional gallium arsenide (GaAs) and indium phosphide (InP) LNA, GaN LNA reported in this work has comparable NF but much higher robustness. Moreover, this LNA has very high linearity, which increases the immunity to jamming signal, enables more complicated modulation mode and improves data throughput. As we know, there is no GaN LNA achieving such high P-1dB and P-sat with NF below 1.4 dB at this frequency band. This GaN LNA has a great potential in the applications of electronic war, anti-electromagnetic interference and signal detection.