InP-HEMT X-band Low-Noise Amplifier With Ultralow 0.6-mW Power Consumption

We report a single-stage InP-high-electron-mobility-transistor (HEMT) X-band low-noise amplifier (LNA) featuring an ultralow dc power consumption at room temperature. The LNA was fabricated with the ETH Zurich 100-nm InP-HEMT MMIC coplanar waveguide process. When operated with a dc power consumption of only 0.6 mW, our LNA delivers a gain of 9.0 +/- 0.9 dB from 7 to 11 GHz with a minimum noise figure of 1.4 dB at 9.8 GHz. The excellent LNA performance is enabled by the favorable characteristics of our InP HEMTs under low-power-dissipation biases. For example, at a bias of V-DS = 0.5 V and I-DS = 66.2 mA/mm, our (0.1 x 2 x 50 mu m(2)) InP HEMTs feature cutoff frequencies of f(T) = 183 GHz and f(MAX) = 230 GHz. The present results demonstrate the excellent capabilities of InP-HEMT technology for high-speed, low-voltage, and room-temperature low-power-consumption applications.