Low-Power Very Low-Noise Cryogenic SiGe IF Amplifiers for Terahertz Mixer Receivers

Creators: Russell, Damon; Weinreb, Sander

Abstract

State-of-the-art radio astronomy terahertz receivers utilize clusters of super-conducting mixers with cryogenic IF amplifiers. The critical parameters of the IF amplifiers are noise temperature, bandwidth, power consumption, input return loss, and physical size. This paper presents test data on three approaches to the IF amplifier; two are silicon-germanium (SiGe) monolithic microwave integrated circuit designs and the third is a discrete SiGe transistor miniature module. The amplifiers provide noise temperatures in the range of 5-15 K, from 1 to 6 GHz, at power consumptions as low as 2 mW.

Additional Information

© 2012 IEEE. Manuscript received September 06, 2011; revised March 04, 2012; accepted March 05, 2012. Date of publication April 10, 2012; date of current version May 25, 2012. The authors would like to thank Prof. J. Bardin, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, for his help during the layout of the SiGe reticle, as well as for his suggestions regarding the design of the MMICs. The authors also wish to thank H. Navarrete, S. Siegel, and S. Smith, all with the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, for their help during the assembly and testing of the amplifier modules.

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Low-Power Very Low-Noise Cryogenic SiGe IF Amplifiers for Terahertz Mixer Receivers

Abstract

Additional Information

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