GaAs low cost microwave monolithic circuits for high volume television applications

Two MMICs have been designed and fabricated for television applications. To be compatible with the needs of the market, low cost approaches have been used to design these circuits. The first one, is an image rejection downconverter fabricated on a 2.4mm2 chip using a 0.5 micron MESFET low cost process. This circuit converts signals in the 10.95 to 12.75GHz band to a lower frequency band (1). The second one is a fully integrated 2GHz downconverter IC fabricated on a 0.9mm2 chip, using an enhancement mode GaAs process. It converts signals in the 0.95GHz to 2GHz band to the UHF band with its internal local oscillator (2). In both cases, original solutions have been used to reduce the cost of the packaged chips .