Low Noise Amplifier with Noise-cancelling for Satellite Communications

ABSTRACT: Low Noise Amplifiers covering the 81-86 GHz band with ultra-low noise figures of less than 2.0 dB at the module"s flange level are proposed. There is a need for front-end components to exploit the available 5 GHz bandwidth for both space and terrestrial government and commercial communications links. Recent noise-cancelling methodologies for multi-octave bandwidth amplifiers where the common-gate noise of a common-gate/common-source input is cancelled will be investigated. The baseline approach, for comparison, will use reactively-matched methodologies with common-source input for the 81-86GHz band. The proposed baseline technology, 50 nm InP MHEMTs grown on GaAs, shows the lowest noise and highest gain in W-band. The linearity, power consumption, gain, and dynamic range will be investigated. Gating criteria include operation over -40 oC to + 80 oC and a path to space-qualification. Applicability of the noise-cancelling approach to full coverage of the 74 110 GHz band, and linearization techniques will be investigated. BENEFIT: The proposed ultra-low noise amplifiers will enable efficient use of the 5 GHz available bandwidth across 81-86 GHz in receiving QAM and QPSK with high linearity. Government and military applications include satellite uplink reception of spectrally efficient waveforms, satellite-to-satellite links, 70 110 GHz weather and ice-coverage observation, battlefield communications, and secure communications. Dual-use applications include 5 GHz wide point-to-point links in crowded environments, and easily-licensed, quickly-deployed overlapping communications. The technology is transferrable to the other E-bands: 71-76 GHz and 92-95 GHz.