Huang Chaoyu, Zhang Zhihao, Wang Xinjie, Liu Hailiang, Zhang Gary
School of Integrated Circuit, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China.
School of Information Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China.
Sensors (Basel). 2023 Jul 22;23(14):6611. doi: 10.3390/s23146611.
This paper presents a monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) low noise amplifier (LNA) that is compatible with n257 (26.5-29.5 GHz) and n258 (24.25-27.5 GHz) frequency bands for fifth-generation mobile communications system (5G) and millimeter-wave radar. The total circuit size of the LNA is 2.5 × 1.5 mm2. To guarantee a trade-off between noise figure (NF) and small signal gain, the transmission lines are connected to the source of gallium nitride (GaN)-on-SiC high electron mobility transistors (HEMT) by analyzing the nonlinear small signal equivalent circuit. A series of stability enhancement measures including source degeneration, an RC series network, and RF choke are put forward to enhance the stability of designed LNA. The designed GaN-based MMIC LNA adopts hybrid-matching networks (MNs) with co-design strategy to realize low NF and broadband characteristics across 5G n257 and n258 frequency band. Due to the different priorities of these hybrid-MNs, distinguished design strategies are employed to benefit small signal gain, input-output return loss, and NF performance. In order to meet the testing conditions of MMIC, an impeccable system for measuring small has been built to ensure the accuracy of the measured results. According to the measured results for small signal, the three-stage MMIC LNA has a linear gain of 18.2-20.3 dB and an NF of 2.5-3.1 dB with an input-output return loss better than 10 dB in the whole n257 and n258 frequency bands.
本文介绍了一种单片微波集成电路（MMIC）低噪声放大器（LNA），它与用于第五代移动通信系统（5G）和毫米波雷达的n257（26.5 - 29.5 GHz）和n258（24.25 - 27.5 GHz）频段兼容。该LNA的总电路尺寸为2.5×1.5 mm²。为了在噪声系数（NF）和小信号增益之间进行权衡，通过分析非线性小信号等效电路，将传输线连接到碳化硅上氮化镓（GaN）高电子迁移率晶体管（HEMT）的源极。提出了一系列稳定性增强措施，包括源极退化、RC串联网络和射频扼流圈，以提高所设计LNA的稳定性。所设计的基于GaN的MMIC LNA采用具有协同设计策略的混合匹配网络（MN），以在5G n257和n258频段实现低NF和宽带特性。由于这些混合MN的优先级不同，采用了不同的设计策略来优化小信号增益、输入输出回波损耗和NF性能。为了满足MMIC的测试条件，构建了一个完美的小信号测量系统，以确保测量结果的准确性。根据小信号测量结果，该三级MMIC LNA在整个n257和n258频段具有18.2 - 20.3 dB的线性增益和2.5 - 3.1 dB的NF，输入输出回波损耗优于10 dB。
