A 200-300 GHz 1:2 active power divider MMIC

Millimeter wave radar and communication systems in the frequency range above 200 GHz are evolving rapidly nowadays. The high absolute bandwidth results in high communication data rates or high radar resolution. The issue at such high frequencies are the ohmic and dielectric losses which are relatively high, making circuit design challenging. Therefore, new methods are investigated which reduce the overall loss of single circuits as well as complex systems. One obvious approach for improvement is the optimization of power division. Generally, power dividers are splitting the incoming signal to N output ports. For passive realizations this inherently results in an insertion loss of at least 10 log(1/N)dB neglecting any other losses. Active power dividers are addressing this issue and are not only able to compensate the losses and the 3 dB power split but even achieve gain in the frequency range of interest. Despite their obvious need in the high millimeter-wave (mmW) frequency range, such concepts are nowadays only proven at frequencies up to 60 GHz [1], [2]. This paper presents an monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) active power divider which successfully operates at mmW frequencies above 200 GHz.