A 4 watt high efficiency 15-18 GHz power MMIC

A two-stage Ku-band monolithic power amplifier is reported. The MMIC (monolithic microwave integrated circuit) incorporates a full interstage matching network and a partial input matching network on the chip. The amplifier delivers 4 W of power, 10 to 13 dB of gain, and more than 20% power added efficiency at 2 dB gain compression. This amplifier can be tuned for a 1 GHz instantaneous bandwidth anywhere in the 15-18 GHz band. A 10-W, 20-dB gain power module using five MMICs demonstrates the usefulness of the MMIC as a building block for higher-power amplifiers.<
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