Design of Advanced Millimeter-Wave GaN MMICs in the HRL T3 Process
Abstract
ABSTRACT:This project at the University of Colorado, Boulder (UCB) aims to support the military needs for trusted and reliable millimeter-wave circuits using state-of-the-art sub-50nm III-V semiconductor technologies for reliable next generation radar, electronic warfare (EW), communications, and command and control systems. The specific goal of the proposed research is to design state-of-the-art millimeter-wave gallium nitride (GaN) MMICs using HRL~s T3 process for RF transceivers, characterize them and compare their performance with other available millimeter-wave GaN processes. The proposed research focuses on broadband power generation that achieves several watts of output power withtwo-digit efficiencies from 75-110GHz. The MMIC designs will include an investigation of millimeter-wave transistor oscillators, multipliers and power amplifiers critical for EW systems. Various levels of on-chip power combining architectures will be investigated to achieve watt-level output, including reactive power combining with stabilization networks that enables optimal device periphery choice, further combining using a balanced amplifier configuration with a multi-stage power-combined PA in each branch, and a travelling-wave balanced architecture which enables broad bandwidth and high gain. Proposed millimeter-wave power source MMICs include a VCO at W-band, as well as aVCO at a lower frequency with an active multiplier. The multiplication factor isdetermined by a trade-off study in the first phase of the project, which compares efficiency, gain, phase noise and frequency isolation of the various source architectures, with equal output power levels sufficient to drive the final watt-level PAs.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Apr 25, 2019
- Source ID
- N000141912236
Entities
People
- Zoya Popovic
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- Regents of the University of Colorado
- United States Navy