A Ku-Band MMIC Two-Stage GaAs-based Low Noise Amplifier for Radar Applications

This paper presents a Ku-band Low-Noise Amplifier (LNA) operating between 13-17 GHz. The two-stage topology design approach aims to optimize the trade-off among power consumption, overall gain and noise performances, leading to the achievement of a linear gain better than 23.2 dB and a Noise Figure lower than 2dB throughout the operative bandwidth. The LNA provides also a challenging OP1dB higher than 18 dBm and a very low power consumption of 400 mW when compared to the state of the art. The MMIC LNA has been designed and fabricated using the 0.15 mu m GaAs E-Mode HEMT process by WIN Semiconductor.