Broadband High-Efficiency Power Amplifiers in 150 nm AlGaN/GaN Technology at Ka-Band

This paper reports the realization and measurements of two power amplifier MMICs at Ka-band. Both MMICs were manufactured using an industrial 0.15 μm AlGaN/GaN HEMT technology. The power amplifiers MMIC1 and MMIC2 are three-stage designs utilizing a total gate width (TGW) of 5.12 mm and 10.24 mm, respectively. In order to maximize the efficiency, the MMICs exhibit a staging ratio of 1: 2: 6.4. The measurements demonstrate for MMIC18-10.5 W of output power with 28-32% of power-added efficiency (PAE) between 25 and 29 GHz, i.e., over a fractional bandwidth of 15%. In the same frequency band, MMIC2 exhibits more than 15 W of output power and 25% of PAE. The best performance for MMIC2 was measured at 27 GHz and reaches 20 W associated with a PAE of 27%.