Design of 24-30 GHz GaN Power Amplifiers with Harmonic-controlled Matching Network

Two monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) power amplifiers (PAs) using 0.1 um GaN process are presented in this work. The PAs are designed to work from 24 to 30 GHz, covering the frequencies like 24.25-27.5 GHz, 27.5-28.35 GHz and 27.5-29.1 GHz for 5G millimeter-wave (mm-Wave) bands. A harmonic-controlled output matching method is used to improve bandwidth and efficiency for two PAs, one is a single stage PA and the other is a two-stage two-way combined PA. The single stage PA has a first measurement results of 25 dBm output power and 25% power-added efficiency (PAE), which are 3.5 dB and 11 % lower than the simulation results. The total sizes of the chips are 1.05*0.65 mm
²
and 1.75*1.25 mm
²
, respectively. The single stage PA is packaged and the measured results agree with the simulated results in terms of small signal performance.