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IEEE Microwave and Guided Wave Letters
Volume 10 Number 12, December 2000

Table of Contents for this issue

Complete paper in PDF format

Ka-Band High-Power and Driver MMIC Amplifiers Using GaAs PHEMTs and Coplanar Waveguides

A. Bessemoulin, Member, IEEE H. Massler, A. Hülsmann and M. Schlechtweg Member, IEEE

Page 534.

Abstract:

We report the design and fabrication of compact 2-and 3-stage coplanar (CPW) microwave monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC) amplifiers having high output power at Ka-band. Based on a 0.15-µm gate length GaAs PHEMT process, a two-stage MMIC driver amplifier has demonstrated at 35 GHz, a linear gain of 11 dB, an output power at 1 dB gain compression P-1 dB of 350 mW,and a saturated output power Psat greater than 500 mW. For the same frequency,the high-power CPW 2-stage amplifier achieved a linear gain of 9.5 dB, with P-1 dB =725 mW and more than 1 W of saturated output power. Additional thermal management resulted in an increased performance,namely, 10.4 dB linear gain, P-1 dB =950 mW and Psat =1.2 W. To our knowledge, those are the highest output powers ever reported at Ka-band for any uniplanar MMIC.

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