I am looking for papers, books, thesis on Distributed Amplifiers preferably in GaAs process technology although I will take those that are in Silicon processes. I need to learn theory and application.
There is a very good book published by Artech House on this subject Fundamentals of Distributed Amplification by Thomas T. Y. Wong. The author has made such amplifiers for a reputable major company in the microwave field and writes from vast experience. One thing that is unanimously said by all of the sources on this subject I have read is that four stages is the upper limit before the imperfections in the topology limit the performance.
The four transistor limit was from some transistor parameter. In the days of valves/tubes the input and output capacitance was a constant value with frequency. But with semiconductors it is not. It is this non-constant loading of the line that makes the phase shift between stages different for the input line and the output line over the frequency range.