A 12-GHz, 12-W HJFET amplifier with 48% peak power-added efficiency

This letter describes a Ku-band power amplifier fabricated with a one-chip 0.45 μm×16.8 mm GaAs-based heterojunction FET (HJFET), in which a 40.9 dBm (12.3 W) output power with 48% power-added efficiency (PAE) and 10.1 dB linear gain was achieved at 12 GHz. To our knowledge, this is the highest PAE, gain and output power combination achieved by a single FET power amplifier at this frequency.