Design and performance of GaAs MMIC's for L-band low noise front-end applications

This paper describes the design and performance of a GaAs monolithic Low Noise Amplifier and Mixer designed for use in communication systems in the 1.5 - 2.5 GHz frequency band. The low noise amplifier uses a reactive serial feedback configuration and has a measured noise figure of 1.8 dB at room temperature and an associated gain of 20 dB over the full bandwidth. The mixer IC uses an active adder and a FET Mixer, including also an IF output buffer. It provides 9 dB conversion gain without need of external bias networks. This was the first design step towards the integration of the two circuit functions on a single chip