A 6 watt Ka-band MMIC power module using MMIC power amplifiers

Author

Ingram, D.L. ; Stones, D.I. ; Huang, T.W. ; Nishimoto, M. ; Wang, H. ; Siddiqui, M. ; Tamura, D. ; Elliott, J. ; Lai, R. ; Biedenbender, M. ; Yen, H.C. ; Allen, B.

Author_Institution

RF Product Center, TRW Inc., Redondo Beach, CA, USA

Volume

3

fYear

1997

fDate

8-13 June 1997

Firstpage

1183

Abstract

In this paper we present the development of a 6 Watt 24% PAE Ka-band power module with an associated power gain of 21.5 dB. The power module consists of a driver amplifier and two power amplifier chips. These MMIC amplifiers were fabricated with a 2-mil thick substrate using 0.15-/spl mu/m InGaAs/AlGaAs/GaAs HEMT technology. The driver amplifier is a fully matched single-ended design with an output power of 27.5 dBm, a 10.7 dB power gain and 27% PAE. We use a hybrid approach for the output power amplifier which consists of two partially-matched MMIC chips and a 8-way Wilkinson combiner fabricated on alumina substrate. The MMIC power amplifiers delivered a record power of 35.4 dBm (3.5 W) with a PAE of 28% and an associated power gain of 11.5 dB. The 8-way combiner has an insertion loss of 0.6 dB. We believe this is a new benchmark for power module using monolithic approach at this frequency range.

Keywords

HEMT integrated circuits; III-V semiconductors; MMIC power amplifiers; aluminium compounds; driver circuits; field effect MMIC; gallium arsenide; indium compounds; integrated circuit design; power combiners; 0.15 micron; 0.6 dB; 10.7 dB; 11.5 dB; 21.5 dB; 24 percent; 27 percent; 28 percent; 3.5 W; 6 W; 8-way Wilkinson combiner; HEMT technology; InGaAs-AlGaAs-GaAs; InGaAs/AlGaAs/GaAs; Ka-band; MMIC power amplifiers; MMIC power module; PAE; driver amplifier; insertion loss; output power; partially-matched MMIC chips; power gain; single-ended design; Driver circuits; Gain; Gallium arsenide; HEMTs; Indium gallium arsenide; Insertion loss; MMICs; Multichip modules; Power amplifiers; Power generation;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microwave Symposium Digest, 1997., IEEE MTT-S International

Conference_Location

Denver, CO, USA

ISSN

0149-645X

Print_ISBN

0-7803-3814-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MWSYM.1997.596538

Filename

596538