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M521: Positive Voltage Control of GaAs MMIC Control Devices

From M/A-COM
 

 
GaAs control devices have seen a tremendous growth in recent years with M/A-COM being the market leader in this area. The fact that these devices are negative voltage controlled devices has precluded the use of standard low cost CMOS drivers and has forced users to develop hybrid driver circuits to accomplish the driver function. This application note discusses a configuration which allows the user to drive GaAs control devices with standard CMOS logic gates. Although specific examples are presented, this application is generic and can be applied to any GaAs control device. Since the GaAs FET requires a 0 V to -5 V relative voltage between the source and the gate, and alternative to using negative control voltage is to elevate or float the DC voltage at the source of the FET to +5V and use a 0 V to +5 V control voltage. This would produce the required voltage differential between the source and gate to 0 V and -5V.
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