We report the first demonstration of W-band metamorphic HEMT's/LNA MMIC's u
sing an AlGaAsSb lattice strain relief buffer layer on a GaAs substrate. 0.
1 x 50 mu m low-noise devices have shown typical extrinsic transconductance
of 850 mS/mm with high maximum drain current of 700 mA/mm and gate-drain b
reakdown voltage of 4.5 V. Small-signal S-parameter measurements performed
on the 0.1-mu m devices exhibited an excellent f(T) of 225 GHz and maximum
stable gain (MSG) of 12.9 dB at 60 GHz and 10.4 db at 110 GHz. The three-st
age W-band LNA MMIC exhibits 4.2 db noise figure with 18 dB gain at 82 GHz
and 4.8 dB noise figure with 14 dB gain at 89 GHz. The gain and noise perfo
rmance of the metamorphic HEMT technology is very close to that of the InP-
based HEMT.