COMPUTER-AIDED-DESIGN OF MMIC VARIABLE ATTENUATORS

Variable attenuators are used widely in telecommunications and electro nic warfare applications to adjust the signal level or compensate for intrinsic gain variations in operating temperature. This article discu sses the design, fabrication and testing of a 3 to 7 GHz, voltage-cont rolled MMIC attenuator and demonstrates the circuit simulation, test e quipment control and data-acquisition capabilities of the MMICAD(TM) S uite of computer-aided engineering (CAE) and computer-aided test (CAT) software. In this application, MMICAD's user-defined modeling feature is key to achieving a satisfactory design.