Maximum available gain versus maximum stable gain

The maximum available gain (sometimes called MAG, sometimes called GMAX) of a device is
only defined where K is greater than one. Algebraically, this is because the term under the
square-root becomes negative for values of K less than 1. Another way to look at it is that
maximum available gain is infinite. Infinite gain means oscillator.
The maximum stable gain (MSG) of a device is defined when maximum available gain is
undefined (K<1). It is merely the ratio of mag(S21)/mag(S12). Under no circumstances should
you try to tease more than this amount of gain from a conditionally stable device. Better yet, you
should try to stabilize the device using resistive components, until K is greater than 1, then you
can optimize the matching networks for all the gain you want.
Calculating GMAX
Looking at available gain (GMAX) is also helpful when you are looking for potential instabilities.
The equation below shows how GMAX is calculated from stability factor K and the forward and
reverse transmission coefficients:

Note that GMAX is only defined for two-port networks.

Available gain is undefined when K is less than one. That's when the square root of (K^2-1)
becomes imaginary.
We found out the hard way that the GMAX equation can give you a big problem when K gets
really big, which it often does. Our S-parameter Utilities spreadsheet (available in the download
area) calculates GMAX, and whenever K became greater than about 20,000,000, GMAX would
become zero in the spreadsheet, which makes no physical sense. It's because within the
expression we are subtracting two very large numbers that only differ by a small amount, and
Excel only maintains 15 digits of accuracy. So how does Agilent ADS deal with this problem,
short of doubling the precision of the number?
We found empirically that the equation below gives the proper result with no worries about K
being large (but is inaccurate when K is not large, so watch out!). In our free download Sparameter Utilities spreadsheet we substitute this whenever K is greater than 1,000,000:

If you are interested in proving why this approximation is valid, we believe you'll need to perform
a Taylor series expansion of the original equation and then allow K to go to infinity. We'll let some
microwave professor assign that math problem for extra credit, we just know that the equation
works correctly when K is greater than 1,000,000, having checked it against some very
expensive EDA software.
Update August 15 2008: here's the math behind the approximation, thanks to Raj! There's a
mathematical approximation that comes into play, you can read about it on Wikipedia but here is
the important part:

Applying this approximation to the formula for GMAX when 1/K^2 is very small (K is very large),
we see that:

and hence:

Thanks, Raj!