A 24-28 GHz GaN MMIC Power Amplifier with Filtering Matching Networks

This paper presents a two-stage power amplifier (PA) monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) for 5G millimeter-wave (mmW) applications using a 0.15 µm GaN-on-SiC technology. To achieve high efficiency and improve gain flatness over a specific operation bandwidth, a synthesized matching strategy with filtering function is adopted. Simulation results show that the realized PA achieves a saturated output power of over 33.5 dBm and a power-added efficiency (PAE) of higher than 32%, with a peak PAE of 36.5% at 26 GHz. The design reveals a small signal gain of 21.0-22.3dB from 24 to 28 GHz, with gain flatness of ±0.6 dB. These results demonstrate the potential of the proposed MMIC for 5G mmW systems.