Abstract

This paper describes the development of a family of RF-On-Wafer (RFOW) testable monolithic GaAs low noise downconverters (LNC's) for direct broadcast by satellite (DBS) use. The paper concentrates on the lower European band of RF frequency range 10.95 - 11.7 GHz, with 0.95 - 1.7 GHz IF. A relatively large and narrow­band prototype LNC was originally designed and tested. This was then developed into a full lower-band, more user-friendly design with less than 4mm2 GaAs chip area. Conversion gains of 30dB and noise figures below 7dB have been achieved.