Ultra-broadband MMIC circuit design

Wide-band amplifiers with multi-octave frequency response are required for instrumentation, high data-rate fibre-optic communications systems and elec tronic warfare applications. This paper describes the distributed or travel ling wave amplifier (TWA) design approach as a means of realizing such freq uency bandwidths. The principle of the TWA design is first outlined, and th en the details of the practical realization in a MMIC environment are discu ssed using a design fabricated on GMMT's H40 HEMT foundry.