Two-tone intermodulation performance of a 300GHz power amplifier MMIC

B. Schoch , A. Tessmann (1) , A. Leuther (1) , P. Szriftgiser (2) , Guillaume Ducournau (3, 4) , I. Kallfass

1 Fraunhofer IAF - Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics
2 PhLAM - Laboratoire de Physique des Lasers, Atomes et Molécules - UMR 8523
3 IEMN - Institut d’Électronique, de Microélectronique et de Nanotechnologie - UMR 8520
4 PHOTONIQUE THZ - IEMN - Photonique THz - IEMN

Intermodulation effects play a decisive role in any system relying on the linear transmission of signals, such as highspeed wireless communication. For the first time, this paper presents measured third-order and fifth-order intermodulation performance of a 300GHz monolithic integrated circuit with a new photonic approach. Conventional amplifier characterization in this frequency range showed a small-signal gain of more than 15dB, operating frequency range from 279 to 313GHz, and a 1dB compression point and saturated output power of 1.6dBm and 6dBm, respectively, from a one-tone power sweep. Using a novel photonic-based measurement setup, the amplifiers' output-related IP3 and IP5 are measured to 13dBm and 11dBm, respectively. The two-tone measurement uses the photonic mixing of three laser lines to generate the two-beat frequencies at 299 and 301GHz.

Mots clés: H-band; metamorphic high electron mobility transistor; optical mixing; photodiodes; power amplifier; submillimeter-wave monolithic integrated circuit

Domaines: Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]

B. Schoch, A. Tessmann, A. Leuther, P. Szriftgiser, Guillaume Ducournau, et al.. Two-tone intermodulation performance of a 300GHz power amplifier MMIC. 2021 IEEE Topical Conference on RF/Microwave Power Amplifiers for Radio and Wireless Applications, PAWR 2021, Jan 2021, San Diego, CA, United States. pp.16-19, ⟨10.1109/PAWR51852.2021.9375586⟩. ⟨hal-03362257⟩