A D-Band Front-End T/R MMIC in a 70-nm GaN HEMT Technology

This paper demonstrates a D-band transmit/receive (T/R) front-end MMIC based on a 70-nm GaN-on-SiC HEMT technology. It features a small chip size of only 3 mm2. Hence, it allows seamless integration into phased array front-end modules. At a 3-dB bandwidth of 131 to 144 GHz, it delivers a peak saturated output power (Psat) of 20 dBm, an output-referred 1-dB compression point (OP1-dB) of 16.5 dBm, a peak power added efficiency (PAEmax) of 7.3 % and a minimum noise figure (NF) of 7 dB. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first GaN-based T/R front-end MMIC operating at D-band.