Control Circuits
Andrei Grebennikov · 2011
This chapter discusses the circuit schematics and main properties of the semiconductor control circuits that are usually characterized by small size, low power consumption, high-speed performance, and operating life. Generally, they can be built based on the p-i-n diodes, silicon MOSFET, or GaAs MESFET transistors and can be divided into two basic parts: amplitude and phase control circuits. They also used as switching elements for directing signal between different transmitting paths, as variable gain amplifiers to stabilize transmitter output power, as attenuators and phase shifters to changing the amplitude and phase of the transmitting signal paths in array systems, or as limiters to protect power-sensitive components. For conventional power amplifiers, the performance degrades significantly with high voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) when the entire active device sees the high impedance conditions corresponding to the device operation in a highly nonlinear saturation mode. Controlled Vocabulary Terms amplifiers; attenuators; MESFETs