Abstract
This paper presents MMIC drive and power amplifiers covering 6-18 ㎓. For simple wideband impedance matching and less sensitivity to fabrication variation, modified distributed topologies are employed in the both amplifiers. Cascade amplifiers with a self-biasing circuit through feedback resistors are used as unit gain blocks in the drive amplifier, resulting in high gain, high stability, and compact chip size. Self impedance matching and high-pass, low-pass impedance matching networks are used in the power amplifier. In measured results, the drive amplifier showed good return losses ($S_11,{\;}S_{22}{\;}<{\;}-10.5{\;}dB$), gain flatness ($S_{21}={\;}16{\;}{\pm}0.6{\;}dB$), and $P_{1dB}{\;}>{\;}22{\;}dBm$ over 6-18 GHz. The power amplifier showed $P_{1dB}{\;}>{\;}28.8{\;}dBm$ and $P_{sat}{\;}{\approx}{\;}30.0{\;}dBm$ with good small signal characteristics ($S_{11}<-10{\;}dB,{\;}S_{22}{\;}<{\;}-6{\;}dB,{\;}and{\;}S_{21}={\;}18.5{\;}{\pm}{\;}1.25{\;}dB$) over 6-18 GHz.