Gallium arsenide 0.5-18 GHz antenna front-end with integrated limiter and differential to single ended low-noise amplifier.

In this study, the authors present a 36:1 relative bandwidth active front-end low-noise amplifier (LNA) with power limiter that has been developed for airborne ultra-wideband receiver systems. The proposed system is driven by an external antenna with a balanced mode with an input impedance of 150 Ω. The whole microwave monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC) embeds a protection from the presence of high-level signals, an ultra-wideband amplifier circuit, an active balun and an impedance transformer. It has a bandwidth ranging from 0.5 to 18.0 GHz with 14 dB gain, 4.5 dB noise figure (NF), 20 dB common-mode rejection and 30 dBm input overload protection. The circuit has a single bias from the output port greatly simplifying its use within a receiving system and can be directly integrated into the antenna mechanical support. Test measurements are also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]