A 24.5-27 GHz GaN Power Amplifier MMIC with 4 W Maximum Saturation Output Power

A 24.5-27 GHz gallium nitride (GaN) power amplifier (PA) is reported in this work. This PA was designed with 0.1 mu m gate-length GaN-on-silicon (GaN/Si) microwave monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC) process. This PA has a 22-25 dB linear gain with high input/output return loss. The measured saturation output power is 35-36 dBm in pulsed work condition (10% duty cycle with 1 ms period). The total drain current is similar to 827mA in saturation working condition with drain efficiency of 33%-40%. The area of this PA is 3.9x1.9 mm(2) with substrate thickness of 100 mu m. Compared with the traditional GaN-on-silicon carbon (GaN/SiC) PA, The PA in this work shows comparable output power, high efficiency, but lower cost. This PA has a great advantage in wide commercial market, such as the next generation 5G communication and other high-speed data transmission networks.