LOW-DC POWER 2-18 GHZ MONOLITHIC MATRIX AMPLIFIER

The authors present a (2 x 5) matrix amplifier with a DC power consump tion as low as 200 mW with 13 dBm of RF output power (@1 dB compressio n point) achieving 7 dB small-signal gain (residual ripple 0.3 dB) and input and output return losses always better than -14 dB. Designed us ing the LN05 monolithic process of Thomson Composants Microondes (TCM) , the amplifier employs ten MESFETs of 160 mum) gate width and submicr on (0.5 mum) gate length, for a total chip area of 2.5 x 3.5 mm2. Broa dband performance and very low power consumption make this amplifier v ery well suited for end-volume realisation of monolithic multiple-stag e front-ends in integrated high bit-rate optical receivers.