125 - 211 GHz low noise MMIC amplifier design for radio astronomy

IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, 2000

Indium-phosphide (InP) high electron-mobility transistors potentially have the lowest noise at frequencies below 100 GHz, especially when cryogenically cooled. We have designed monolithically integrated InP millimeter-wave low-noise amplifiers (LNA's) for the European Space Agency (ESA) science Planck mission. The Planck LNA's design goal for noise temperature is 35 K at the ambient temperature of 20 K. The operation bandwidth is over 20% at 70 GHz. The maximum allowable power consumption for a Planck LNA (gain 20 dB) is = 5 mW at 20 K. The chosen foundry for these LNA's was . The DaimlerChrysler 0.18-m InP process was used. This process is well suited for -band LNA design, giving sufficient gain with very low noise. Several one-, two-, and three-stage amplifiers were designed. The best of them exhibited a noise figure lower than 5.5 dB with a gain higher than 14 dB over the 50-68-GHz range at room temperature. The best single-stage amplifier demonstrated a noise figure of 4.5 dB and a gain higher than 5 dB from 50 to 60 GHz at room temperature. On-wafer measurements on these monolithic-microwave integrated circuits (MMIC's) have been done at MilliLab, Espoo, Finland. For the module fabrication, MMIC chips will be mounted in a WR-15 waveguide split-block housing.

This paper relates the state of the art of the HEMT low noise technologies for the space applications at millimeter wave and specially for the earth observation in the G-band (140 -220 GHz). The different III-V technologies (HEMT and LNA) and their associated performance are presented. Parameters limiting the improvement of high frequency characteristics for HEMTs with the downscaling process are studied. 11th GAAS Symposium -Munich 2003

… , 1998. THz Ninety …, 1998

Superconductive hot-electron bolometer (HEB) mixers have been built and tested in the frequency range from 1.1 THz to 2.5THz. The mixer device is a 0.15-0.3 pm microbridge made from a 10 nm thick Nb film. This device employs diffusion as a cooling mechanism for hot electrons. The double sideband noise temperature was measured to be 53000 K a t 2.5 THz and the mixer IF bandwidth is expected to be at least 10 GHz for a 0.1 pm long device. The local oscillator (LO) power dissipated in the HEB microbridge was 20-100 nW. Further improvement of the mixer characteristics can be potentially achieved by using AI microbridges. The advantages and parameters of such devices are evaluated. The HEB mixer is a primary candidate for ground based, airborne and spaceborne heterodyne instruments at THz frequencies. HEB receivers are planned for use on the NASA Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) and the ESA Far Infrared and Submillimeter Space Telescope (FIRST). The prospects of a submicron-size YBazCu3O-r-s (YBCO) HEB are discussed. The expected LO power of 1-10 pW and SSB noise temperature of ~2 0 0 0 K may make this mixer attractive for various remote sensing applications.

2002

High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMTs) play a crucial role in receivers for millimeter and submillimeter astrophysical observations. Low noise HEMTs are used extensively in low noise receiver front ends, for coherent direct detection and intermediate frequency (IF) amplification in heterodyne detection. Power amplifiers are becoming widely used for local oscillator (LO) subsystems in heterodyne receivers. We will describe the state-of-the-art in low noise amplifier technology stressing recent results at frequencies 1-110 GHz, with a focus on TRW's InP HEMT devices. We will describe the potential for performance improvements with a focus on proposed astrophysics applications.

International Journal of Infrared and Millimeter Waves - INT J INFRAR MILLIM WAVE, 2000

We have developed a niobium titanium nitride (NbTiN) based superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) receiver to cover the 350 micron atmospheric window. This frequency band lies entirely above the energy gap of niobium (700 GHz), a commonly used SIS superconductor. The instrument uses an open structure twin-slot SIS mixer that consists of two Nb/AlN/NbTiN tunnel junctions, NbTiN thin-film microstrip tuning elements, and a NbTiN ground plane. The optical configuration is very similar to the 850 GHz waveguide receiver that was installed at the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) in 1997. To minimize front-end loss, we employed reflecting optics and a cooled beamsplitter at 4 K. The instrument has an uncorrected receiver noise temperature of 205K DSB at 800 GHz and 410K DSB at 900 GHz. The degradation in receiver sensitivity with frequency is primarily due to an increase in the mixer conversion loss, which is attributed to the mismatch between the SIS junction and the twin-slo...

This letter presents the results of two 160-190-GHz monolithic low-noise amplifiers (LNA's) fabricated with 0.07-m pseudomorphic (PM) InAlAs/InGaAs/InP HEMT technology using a reactive ion etch (RIE) via hole process. A peak small signal gain of 9 dB was measured at 188 GHz for the first LNA with a 3-dB bandwidth from 164 to 192 GHz while the second LNA has achieved over 6-dB gain from 142 to 180 GHz. The same design (second LNA) was also fabricated with a 0.08-m gate and a wet etch process, showing a small-signal gain of 6 dB with 6-dB noise figure. All the measurement results were obtained via on-wafer probing. The LNA noise measurement at 170 GHz is also the first attempt at this frequency. Index Terms-High electron mobility transistor (HEMT), LNA, MMIC, noise figure (NF), pseudomorphic (PM) technology.

SPIE Proceedings, 1995

We report on the first heterodyne measurements with a diffusion-cooled hot-electron bolometer mixer in the submillimeter wave band, using a waveguide mixer cooled to 2.2 K. The best receiver noise temperature at a local oscillator frequency of 533 GHz and an intermediate frequency of 1.4 GHz was 650 K (double sideband). The 3 dB IF rolloff frequency was around 1.7 to 1.9 GHz, with a weak dependence on the device bias conditions.

2019 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium (IMS), 2019

Atmospheric science based on space-borne millimeter wave measurements require reliable and state-of-theart receivers. In particular, the water vapor line at 183.3 GHz motivates the development of sensitive mixers at this frequency. Traditional assembly techniques employed in the production of Schottky diode receivers involve flip-chip mounting and soldering of discrete dies, which prohibit the implementation of reliable and repeatable production processes. In this work, we present a subharmonic 183 GHz mixer implementing a repeatable assembly method using beamlead Schottky diodes. The mixer was integrated with a InP HEMT MMIC low noise intermediate frequency amplifier resulting in a record-low receiver noise temperature of 450 K at 1 mW of local oscillator power measured at room-temperature. The measured Allan time was 10 s and the third order local oscillator spurious power was less than-60 dBm. The proposed assembly method is of particular importance for space-borne missions but also applicable to a wide range of terahertz applications.

Microwave and Optical Technology Letters, 1993

ponents operate at room temperature. The room-temperature electronics dissipate approximately 20 W of power, which is typical for high-speed semiconductor circuits in a relatively complex system. It is not feasible to operate all of the semiconductor circuits at cryogenic temperature because that would represent a tremendous heat load for a cryogenic cooler. A trade-off could also be made, although it is not incorporated into this system, in which compressed pulses are captured by a bank of low-power, high-speed track-and-hold circuits operating at cryogenic temperature. The demonstration of a GaAs track-and-hold circuit operating at 77 K along with a YBCO delay line has been previously reported [7]. V. RECEIVER APPLICATIONS The very wideband spectral-analysis receiver described here can be configured as a cueing receiver within a high-performance microwave signal-analysis system, as shown in Figure 7. The spectral-analysis receiver determines the frequencies of received signals and controls a mixer to place the intercepted signals into a narrowband channel where the signals can be further processed for information content. Prototypes of many of the passive HTS microwave devices and subsystems that could be used in an HTS version of the system shown in Figure 7 have been produced and tested. These include narrowband filters, wideband delay lines, phased-array antenna feed networks, and electrically small antennas [11. VI. CONCLUSIONS A fully integrated high-T, spectral-analysis receiver has been demonstrated. The instantaneous 3-GHz bandwidth of this single-channel prototype HTS microwave system is made possible by the HTS chirp filter and is beyond that available with conventional technology. The receiver demonstrates a practical combination of a high-T,. passive microwave device and conventional, commercially available high-speed semiconductor circuits. It also offers a minimal cryogenic cooling requirement along with the performance advantage provided by the HTS device. For all of these reasons, this prototype receiver represents a strong candidate for near-term insertion

2010

In this work, the authors discuss the design of two low noise amplifiers (LNA) based on 1 μm gate-length pHEMT InP transistors and using two different topologies. Designed for radio astronomy applications, the first is a cascode circuit with a maximum gain of 15 dB and noise figure of 0.6 dB, while the second is a 2-stage cascaded amplifier with 27 dB of gain and 0.63 dB of noise figure. The two amplifiers exhibit an input 1 dB compression point of -22 dBm and -26 dBm respectively, and a third order input intercept point of -10 dBm and -5 dBm, respectively.