Ultra Low-Noise Performance of 0.15-Micron Gate GaAs MESFET’s Made by Direct Ion Implantation for Low-Cost MMIC’s Applications

The high-speed and noise performance of 0.15-micron gate GaAs MESFET’s for microwave and millimeterwave IC applications is reported on. The best extrinsic fc is 109 GHz without correction for pad parasitics which is equivalent to an intrinsic ft of 134 GHz. The 0.15 × 200-micron gate GaAs MESFET achieved 0.6-dB noise figure with 17-dB associated gain at 10 GHz and 0.9-dB noise figure with 13-dB associated gain at 18 GHz. The measured noise figure and associated gain is the best reported performance for GaAs MESFET’s and comparable to the best noise/gain performance of HEMT’s and P-HEMT’s.