Low-Noise, Integrated, Millimeter-Wave Receiver

Large numbers of solid-state, low-noise receivers that can be built into compact low-cost radio transmission systems are needed for future terrestrial and satellite communication systems. This paper describes a low-noise microstrip receiver with a single-sideband noise figure of 5.5 dB at 30 GHz, including 0.8 dB resulting from the if amplifier. The receiver consists of a Gunn diode, a Schottky barrier device, and a microstrip conductor pattern on a fused-quartz substrate. The circuit is fabricated using thin-film photolithographic processing techniques. It can be readily scaled to frequencies up to 100 GHz.