High Efficiency, Low Power, Low Noise Amplifiers for SATCOM (2007021)

Today’s satellite communications terminals rely on electronically steered arrays made of a large number of radiating elements with a receive module connected to each element. Typically, a receive module contains a Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) and a phase shifter integrated into one (or more) MMIC chip. In order to reduce the power dissipation of the receiver, one critical design goal for module and hence the Low Noise Amplifier (LNA), is to maximize the power-added efficiency (PAE) of the amplifier. While the dissipation in the LNA is a small fraction of the prime power consumption in the transmitter, the receiver portion of the terminal remains powered on at all times, thus the power consumption in the receiver represents a critical power drain. This will result in a reduced heat-load, which will in turn reduces the required cooling of the receive phased array antenna. The proposed program will conduct an analysis and preliminary design of high-efficiency, low power consumption, self-biased MMIC LNAs covering X- and K-band frequency bands.