Low-Noise and Small-Sized Receiver Frontend with Unified Circuit-Antenna Integration

In this paper, a low-noise and small-sized receiver frontend is proposed through unified integration of transistor in between array elements. The general modelling steps in connection with this unification are described, followed by a prototype design at 10 GHz as an example. Subsequently, the noise figure formulation of both active integrated antenna (AIA) scheme and unified circuit-antenna solution are analyzed through supporting equations. The prototype is fabricated, and the measured results agree closely with simulated results. This circuit-antenna unification is able to realize 15% impedance matching bandwidth, and 11.8 dB amplification gain. It has also demonstrated a reduction in both noise figure and size by 1 dB and 45% respectively, compared to the AIA counterpart.