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Design of a reconfigurable low-noise amplifier in a silicon-germanium process for radar applications

This thesis describes a unique approach of turning on and off transistor cores to reconfigure low-noise amplifiers. A small footprint single-pole, single-throw switch is optimized for low insertion loss and high isolation. A narrowband (non-switchable) LNA is developed as a basis of comparison for reconfigurable designs. The optimized switch is incorporated into different switchable transistor core architectures. These architectures are investigated to determine their ability to reconfigure amplifier performance. One switchable transistor core topology is integrated into a cascode LNA design. An in depth stability analysis employing the S-probe technique is used to help improve the reliability of the cascode design. In addition, a single-pole, double-throw transmit/receive switch, as well as a deserializer are developed to help support the LNA block in a reconfigurable phased-array radar system. This type of flexible radar design is very beneficial in challenging electromagnetic environments.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:GATECH/oai:smartech.gatech.edu:1853/47642
Date06 April 2012
CreatorsSchmid, Robert L.
PublisherGeorgia Institute of Technology
Source SetsGeorgia Tech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis

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