Spectrian Corporation

William H McCalpin

Francois Hebert

Donald K Belcher

David S Wisherd

Pierre R Irissou

David S Piazza

Increased gain and improved stability are realized in using resistive emitter ballasting by including integrated capacitive elements in parallel with the resistive elements in the emitter circuit. A feature of the invention is an integrated capacitor structure having a small surface area to minimize parasitic capacitance, whereby resistor and capacitor surface areas of 100 square micrometers or less are obtained. Another feature of the invention is the use of a high dielectric material in realizing a resistor-capacitor impedance zero at a frequency much lower than the operating frequency of the transistor. For an operating frequency of 2 GHz and resistor values of 50-250 ohms, capacitance required is 3 pF or greater. Another feature of the invention is a method of fabricating the integrated resistive-capacitive element in either a low temperature process or a high temperature process which minimizes capacitor leakage when using a thin high dielectric insulative material between capacitor plates.

RF power transistor having improved stability and gain

A circuit arrangement automatically sets quiescent collector current conditions for a class A/B RF power transistor, which is configured of a plurality of parallel-connected transistors formed in a common semiconductor die. The biasing circuit arrangement includes a temperature-sensing transistor having its collector-emitter current flow path coupled with a programmable constant current source. A differential amplifier circuit is coupled to the base and emitter electrodes of the temperature sensing transistor, and generates a bias voltage for biasing each of the transistors of the RF power device. This bias voltage is combined with a programmable D.C. offset voltage. The values of the constant current and D.C. offset voltage are programmed such that the average of the quiescent collector currents of the parallel-connected transistors of the RF power transistor corresponds to the quiescent collector current through the temperature-sensing transistor. An optional external control voltage may be used to further adjust the bias voltage for the RF power transistor.

Circuit for automatically biasing RF power transistor by use of on-chip

An RF power FET amplifier is designed using parasitic resonant matching to reduce low intermodulation distortion. An input inductor is connected in parallel with the capacitance of the common-source input capacitance, an output inductor is connected in parallel with the common-source output capacitance. Feedback provided by the common-source capacitance between gate and drain is utilized to improve linearization and stability. The field effect transistor is designed so that the feedback signal resulting from the feedback capacitance is 180.degree. with respect to the forward gain.

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Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

William H McCalpin