A 670 GHz Integrated InP HEMT Direct-Detection Receiver for the Tropospheric Water and Cloud Ice Instrument

In this work, a novel 670-GHz integrated direct-detection receiver using 25-nm InP HEMT technology is presented. This is the first demonstration of an integrated direct-detection radiometer architecture at these frequencies. The receiver exhibits a noise figure of 11.4 dB with a total dc power consumption of 0.25 W. The integrated receiver measures only 0.8 cm × 1.3 cm × 4.8 cm (0.3” × 0.5” × 1.9”). These results show that transistor-based direct-detection receivers are a viable technology for submillimeter-wave applications, with low SWaP with no compromise in performance.