Analysis and Design of a W-Band MMIC LNA with 4.2 dB Noise Figure in GaAs-based 100 nm pHEMT Technology

A W-band Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) is presented in this paper. The UMS PH10 process, which is the GaAs/InGaAs based pseudomorphic High Electron Mobility Transistors (pHEMTs) technology, is utilized to design the proposed W-band MMIC LNA. The proposed LNA has a simulated noise figure (NF) of 4.2 dB in the operating frequency range from 94 to 104 GHz while the simulated minimum noise figure (NFmin) of 3.9 dB at the center frequency. Besides, proposed W-band MMIC LNA has very good reflection loss performance, well below -10 dB and high small signal gain (S21), above 16.3 dB. Moreover, MMIC LNA is unconditionally stable up to 160 GHz. Furthermore, the proposed 3-stage MMIC LNA has a total DC power dissipation of 120 mW DC while drain voltage is 2 V. The proposed W-band LNA has a small size of 2.2 mm x 1.2 mm which yields a total chip size of 2.64 mm2.