Browsing by Subject "Low-noise amplifier"
Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Open Access Design and development of X-band GaN-based low-noise amplifiers(2022-12) Zafar, SalahuddinGallium nitride (GaN) high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) technology emerged as a preferable candidate for high-power applications. GaN HEMTs on silicon carbide (SiC) substrate provide the best combination of speed and power due to high power density, escalated saturated carrier velocity, high efficiency, enhanced electrical breakdown, and superior thermal conductivity. Over the years, GaN technology also started to take its place in low-noise applications due to built-in power handling capability at the receive end of transceivers for compact designs and high linearity. For GaN-based low-noise amplifiers (LNAs), improving the noise figure (NF) and getting it close to other competitive technologies is always challenging. More-over, further improvement in the robustness of GaN-based LNAs in terms of survivability and reverse recovery time (RRT) is needed. For this purpose, NAN-OTAM’s 0.15 µm GaN on SiC HEMT process is used to realize LNAs, one with survivability as high as 42 dBm and the other having NF as low as 1.2 dB. Survivability is investigated in terms of gain compression and forward gate current, while RRT is explored in detail with respect to the RC time constant of transistor and trap phenomenon. In the LNA design, the significance of inductive source degenerated HEMT, and the role of stability networks towards NF improvement are discussed in detail. Furthermore, thermal simulations and infrared (IR) thermographic measurements of the LNA monolithic microwave integrated circuit are correlated to unveil the maximum channel temperature buried inside the two-dimensional electron gas of HEMT.Item Open Access Design and robustness improvement of high-performance LNA using 0.15 μm GaN technology for X-band applications(John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2022-07) Zafar, Salahuddin; Çankaya Akoğlu, Büşra; Aras, Erdem; Yılmaz, Doğan; Nawaz, Muhammad İmran; Kashif, Ahsanullah; Özbay, EkmelIn this paper, we present a highly robust GaN-based X-band low-noise amplifier (LNA) showing promising small-signal and noise performance as well as good linearity. The LNA is fabricated using in-house 0.15 μm AlGaN/GaN on a SiC HEMT process. Owing to the optimum choice of HEMT topologies and simultaneous matching technique, LNA achieves a noise figure better than 2 dB, output power at 1 dB gain compression higher than 19 dB, input and output reflection coefficients better than −9 and −11 dB, respectively. The small-signal gain of LNA is more than 19 dB for the whole band, and NF has a minimum of 1.74 dB at 10.2 GHz. LNA obtains an OIP3 up to 34.2 dBm and survives input power as high as 42 dBm. Survivability is investigated in terms of gain compression and forward gate current. Reverse recovery time (RRT), a crucial parameter for radar front-ends, is explored with respect to the RC time constant and trap phenomenon. The analysis shows that the significant contribution in RRT is due to traps while the RC time constant is in the nanoseconds range. Moreover, this study also addresses the requirement and choice of a DC gate feed resistor for the subsequent stages in a multi-stage design. The size of the designed LNA chip is 3 mm (Formula presented.) 1.2 mm only.Item Open Access Design of GaN-based X-band LNAs to achieve sub-1.2 dB noise figure(Wiley, 2022-08-21) Zafar, Salahuddin; Aras, Erdem; Cankaya Akoglu, Busra; Tendurus, Gizem; Nawaz, Muhammad Imran; Kashif, Ahsanullah; Ozbay, EkmelGaAs and SiGe technologies take an edge over GaN-based devices in terms of better noise figure (NF). In this article, we present HEMT topologies and design techniques to achieve a sub-1.2 dB NF for a GaN-based X-band low-noise amplifier (LNA). This NF is comparable with state-of-the-art reported works in competitive GaAs and SiGe technologies. Moreover, this is the best reported NF in X-band using GaN technology to date. Two LNAs are fabricated using in-house 0.15 μm AlGaN/GaN on the SiC HEMT process. LNA-1 has inductive source degenerated (ISD) HEMTs at both stages, while LNA-2 has ISD HEMT at the first and common source at the second stage. The significance of ISD HEMT, for the first or subsequent stages in a multi-stage design, towards NF improvement is addressed. The criticality of stability networks towards NF contribution and its design is discussed in detail. Furthermore, even-mode stability of each HEMT after complete LNA design is assured using the S-probe method in Pathwave Advanced Design Systems.Item Open Access GaN-on-SiC LNA for UHF and L-Band(IEEE, 2019) Zafar, Salahuddin; Osmanoğlu, Sinan; Çankaya, Büşra; Kashif, A.; Özbay, EkmelIn this paper, we report a broadband GaN HEMT LNA from 100 MHz to 2 GHz, using common source with inductive degeneration and RC feedback topology. Flat gain response of ±1.5 dB variation for 9 V drain voltage with 108 mA drain current bias is achieved. Noise characteristics for frequencies as low as 100 MHz have been explored for the first time for GaN-on-SiC technology. A gain greater than 8 dB with single stage, and promising values of input reflection coefficient (smaller than -8.9 dB) and output reflection coefficient (smaller than -7.1 dB) have been achieved, respectively. Minimum NF of 2.9 dB is achieved while an NF smaller than 5 dB is reported in the usable frequency range from 310 MHz to 2 GHz. Performance evaluation is also done for both low and high drain current and voltage values. In-house 0.15 μm GaN-on-SiC process is used to design this MMIC. The chip size for designed MMIC is 1.35 mm × 1.35 mm.Item Open Access Unveiling Tmax inside GaN HEMT based X-band low-noise amplifier by correlating thermal simulations and IR thermographic measurements(IEEE, 2022-12-20) Zafar, Salahuddin; Durna, Yılmaz; Koçer, Hasan; Akoğlu, Büşra Çankaya; Aras, Yunus Erdem; Odabaşı, Oğuz; Bütün, Bayram; Özbay, EkmelThis paper presents a method to reveal the channel temperature profile of high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) in a multi-stage monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC). The device used for this study is a two-stage X-band low-noise amplifier fabricated using 0.15 m GaN-on-SiC technology with 4x50 m and 4x75 m HEMTs at the first and the second stage, respectively. The surface temperature measured through infrared (IR) thermography has a diffraction-limited resolution. Moreover, it is impossible to measure sub-surface Tmax residing inside the two-dimensional electron gas of HEMT using IR thermographic measurements. Finite element analysis (FEA) thermal simulations are performed in this study to acquire the surface and sub-surface temperature profiles of the whole MMIC. IR measurements and FEA simulations are integrated through a correlation-based method verifying the accuracy of the FEA-based temperature profiles. This method leads to accurately finding the hotspots in the MMIC, thus revealing the Tmax of both stages. The correlation method using two filters approach to match the measurements and simulated temperature profiles of all the stages finds its application in MMICs’ high-temperature operating lifetime reliability tests.