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This application note covers driver selection and circuit design for FET
switches and attenuators, including non-linear performance as Vopt is varied
By Christopher Weigand
M/A-COM, Inc.
he use of a plastic packaged ASIC driver
instances where video leakage from the control lines For the –3 volts data, there are significant unit-to-unit
must be minimized, filtering can be installed between the variations below 100 MHz. The compression points in a
driver and the attenuator. The filtering would consist of single wafer lot varied up to 4 dB so there needs to be a
a single shunt capacitor in most cases, which would slow significant guard band at low frequencies. With –3 volts
the switching speed. control, there was significantly better performance with
Most of the newer M/A-COM attenuators have an 5 kohm gate resistors than there was with 2 kohm gate
internal 10 kohm shunt resistor, but in older attenuators resistors.
it may be necessary to provide a DC return at either the There was little variation in performance above 500
RF IN or RF OUT port. MHz so 1 dB compression plots are done over two ranges
Without the DC return, all bits will be accurate rela- to better demonstrate the performance at low frequen-
tive to each other, except that the reference loss state will cies. The performance at low frequencies will be compa-
have degraded performance, and may have up to 0.5 dB rable for IP2 and IP3.
more loss than it would be with a DC return. The other
bits do not exhibit this problem because they contain a Switching speed vs. gate resistance
shunt element that provides a DC return. There are two primary factors that limit the switch-
ing speed of GaAs FET switches, the transmission line
Non-linear performance with Vopt = 0 V and 2 V inductance between the driver and the MMIC and the
1 dB compression, second order intercept, and third RC time constant on the MMIC. The RC time constant
order intercept were evaluated as a function of Vopt, Vee, on the MMIC will increase by a factor of 2.5 as the gate
gate resistors, and frequency. This was done to reevalu- resistance is increased from 2 kohm to 5 kohm. Unless
ate the non-linear performance after the pinch-off volt- very fast switching speed is required, a 5 kohm is suffi-
ages of the FETs were lowered and the ion implanter was cient for adequate switching performance.
changed to increase the FET breakdown voltages. We
measured the non-linear performance of two SPDT Summary
switches. One switch was the SW-313, which uses the The basic performance of the ASIC driver for GaAs
MASW4030G die, which has 5 kohm gate resistors. In control components was described. Special attention
the other switch, we replaced the MASW4030G die with was paid to the performance as Vopt, Rgate and Vee were
the MASW6010G die, which has 2 kohm gate resistors. varied as a function of frequency. For 3 volt performance
See the graphs in Figures 3, 4, and 5 for plots of 1 dB there was significant unit-unit variation at low frequen-
compression, second order intercept, and third order cies, and increasing gate resistance improved non-linear
intercept vs. Vopt, Vee, gate resistors and frequency. performance. At Vee = –5 volts there was improvement
There are some key points to note relative to the plots. in the non-linear performance, with only small changes
▲ Figure 6. Third order intercept vs. Vopt, Vee, gate resistors linear performance was the best. There was much less
and frequency. variation across frequency for Vee = –8 volts. ■
References
as gate resistance was varied. There was still fairly sig- 1. C. D. Weigand, “Updated Methods for Driving GaAs
nificant roll-off in non-linear performance with Vee = –5 FET Control Devices — Introducing a New Silicon
volts. With Vee = –8 volts, and Vopt = +2 volts, the non- Driver,” p. 337, 1993 M/A-COM Engineering Conference
Digest.
Author information
Christopher Weigand received a BSEE from Tufts
University in 1977 and an MSEE from Tufts University
in 1979. From 1979 until 1981, he worked at Hughes
Aircraft Company on the design and development of
satellite ground stations. From 1981 until 1989, he
designed passive components, phase modulators and
subassemblies for ANZAC. He has been with M/A-COM
since 1989, and currently is a Principal Engineer in the
RF & Microwave Components product line. He has
designed GaAs MMIC switches, digital attenuators and
digital phase shifters. He has been the project engineer
for the PHS diversity switch product line. He may be
▲ Figure 7. SPDT switch with GND returns on RF ports. reached via email at weigand@tycoelectronics.com.