Wideband 5.5W Ka-Band Low-Cost MMIC High Power Amplifier with 30dB of Gain

A Ka-band MMIC high power amplifier (HPA) is presented that supplies over 5W of output power with 30dB of gain over a 3.5GHz band and is produced on a low-cost, mature, commercially available 0.25um PHEMT process. The HPA has the largest power-bandwidth product at Ka-band reported to date [1, 2]. It is also the first Ka-band MMIC HPA in the 4W plus power range to have five stages of gain, and consequently has about 10dB more gain than comparable MMIC amplifiers [1]. The high gain eliminates the costs associated with using another amplifier to drive the HPA. The HPA uses less chip area than comparable amplifiers that have only three stages of gain [1]. Other amplifiers have been reported that have comparable power performance but were fabricated on more expensive 0.1um or 0.15um processes [1, 2]. The high output power and gain in a small chip area along with the inexpensive 0.25um process make the HPA low cost.