C to V-band Cascode Distributed Amplifier Design Leveraging a Double Gate Length Gallium Nitride on Silicon Process

Design solutions and technology considerations of a 6–52 GHz cascode distributed amplifier are presented in this paper. The amplifier is designed in a Gallium Nitride on Silicon process with two different gate length transistors, namely 60 nm and 100 nm, connected in cascode configuration. The test vehicle, whose additional aim is to show the possibility to integrate transistors with different gate lengths onto the same chip, demonstrates 9 dB gain, 28 dBm saturated output power, 20% PAE and 37 dBm IP3, on average. Comparison with Gallium Nitride on Silicon Carbide based similar works reveals satisfactory performance obtained however on a cost effective and high volume production substrate.