D-band LNA using a 40-nm GaAs mHEMT technology

Abstract

A D-band LNA is reported serving as a test vehicle of an under-development 40 nm GaAs HEMT technology developed by OMMIC foundry. The amplifier, designed on the basis of custom small-signal equivalent-circuit models, is featured by state-of-the-art performance, and in particular has a noise figure as low as 4 dB at 140 GHz and a gain higher than 20 dB approximately from 115 GHz to 160 GHz. The main steps of the non-standard design flow are also illustrated, hinged on two main ideas: a closed-form analysis of the input/output matching bounds of the active devices, on the one hand, and an efficient optimization approach to shift the reference planes of EM-simulated networks, on the other.