Fabrication of on-wafer MMIC compatible integrated NiCr loads

In this work we report on a novel technique for the fabrication of integrated NiCr resistors on GaAs substrates which are compatible with monolithic millimetre-wave integrated circuits (MMMICs) using e-beam lithography. Integrated NiCr resistors are required extensively for broadband RF on-wafer calibration of a vector network analyser and passive and active microwave components realisation. These loads showed a flat frequency response across an ultra-broadband range from DC to 110 GHz. In order to demonstrate the validity of using these NiCr loads on GaAs for on-wafer calibration, active devices were measured after LRRM calibration using the GaAs NiCr loads and compared with measured data of the same devices after LRL calibration.