SEMINAR: “Gain Variation and Noise Figure Degradation in Balanced Amplifiers”
by
AKIF ALPEREN COSKUN
Ph.D. Defence in Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Supervisor: ABDULLAH ATALAR
The seminar will be on Monday, July 3, 2017 at 15:00, @EE-314
ABSTRACT
Although using balanced amplifiers in modern wireless communication systems has many advantages, the output and the noise response of the balanced amplifiers may vary from the expected value considerably due to the imperfections in the amplifier and the divider/combiner sections. First, we analyze the variation in the total gain of the balanced amplifiers using 2-way 0_ power dividers and 90_ couplers. In this context, mathematical analyses are made and analytical expressions are obtained to compare the two topologies. Analytical expressions show that the uncertainty in the total gain is more if the 90_ coupler is used in the balanced structure as opposed to a 2-way 0_ power divider for the same return loss/isolation values. Then, we present exact and approximate analytical results for the noise _gure and noise parameters of the balanced amplifier in divider topology by using the noise waves. By the help of the noise wave approach, the output noise powers generated by each element in the balanced amplifier are derived. Y-parameters are used to determine the noise waves and the correlation matrix of the divider whereas the noise parameters is used to write the noise waves of the amplifier. Balanced amplifiers su_er in the noise _gure performance in comparison to a stand-alone amplifier even with an ideal input divider. The noise parameters degrade further with an imperfect divider. Not only the nonzero return loss and the isolation but also the ohmic loss, amplitude and phase imbalances are considered. Besides, non-zero optimal source impedance a_ects the noise parameters of the balanced amplifier. Measurement results are also presented as a verification.
Keywords: Balanced ampli_ers, gain variation, mismatch, noise _gure, noise parameters, noise waves, phase and amplitude imbalance, two-way dividers, hybrid couplers.