A compact 47–52-GHz power amplifier MMIC with output power of 20 W

Abstract

A 47–52-GHz power amplifier (PA) Microwave Monolithic Integrated Circuit (MMIC) with silicon carbon (SiC)-based gallium nitride (GaN) was reported in this work. The circuit solution gives particular consideration to the loss of matching the output matching network. In pulse conditions, the PA can reach a maximum saturated output power of 43 dBm (20 W) with typical gain values of 18 dB and power-added efficiency of 21%. The output power at −1 dB gain compression ($P_{1dB}$) is 40.2 dBm, and the power density is up to 3.36 W/mm in the active periphery under the drain voltage of 24 V. The chip is compact with an area of 5.6 × 3.7 mm². This PA achieves higher output power in comparison to the reported PA MMIC.