A Compact 6.5-W PHEMT MMIC Power Amplifier for Ku-Band Applications

A compact 6.5-W AlGaAs/InGaAs/GaAs PHEMT monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) power amplifier (PA) for Ku-band applications is proposed. This two-stage amplifier with chip size of 8.554mm
²
(3.64mmtimes2.35mm) is designed to fully match 50-Omega input and output impedance. Under 8V and 2000mA dc bias condition, the PA deliver 38.1dBm (6.5W) saturated output power, 10.5-dB small signal gain and peak power added efficiency of 24.6% from 13.6 to 14.2GHz. This MMIC also achieved the best power densities (760mW/mm
²
) at Ku band reported to date