Monolithic Miniaturized Differentially-Fed Branch-Line Directional Coupler in GaAs Monolithic Technology

• Main Authors: Slawomir Gruszczynski, Robert Smolarz, Changying Wu, Krzysztof Wincza
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-03-01
• Series: Electronics
• Subjects: directional couplers; differential couplers; hybrid couplers; branch-line couplers; mmic couplers
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/9/3/446

In this paper, a design of a miniaturized branch-line directional coupler is presented. The coupler is designed with balanced coupled-line sections, which are electrically shortened by the application of lumped capacitors. To measure the parameters of the coupler, appropriate baluns have been designed. The coupler has been designed in a GaAs PH25 UMS (united monolithic semiconductor) technology with the center frequency of 24 GHz. The measured power split equals 3 dB with the transmission/coupling imbalance not exceeding 0.6 dB. The measured return losses equal 17 dB at the center frequency, whereas the isolation reaches 17 dB. The fabricated coupler‘s size equals 630 um × 487 um, which is 0.19 of the full size of the directional coupler in the chosen technology (1191 um × 1170 um).