6.5 Watt, 35 GHz Balanced Power Amplifier MMIC using 6-Inch GaAs pHEMT Commercial Technology

A 6.5 watt power amplifier MMIC has been developed for the 35 GHz band. The amplifier exhibits high performance at low processing cost through the use of a commercially available 6-inch, 0.15-mum pHEMT process with 100 mum thick substrate. The balanced four stage amplifier MMIC has 23 dB of gain, 6.5 watts saturated output power (38.1 dBm) with high absorption load for driving into a mismatch, and power added efficiency of 24%. In terms of output power, this is to the authors' knowledge the best reported for fully matched GaAs pHEMT MMICs on 100-mum substrates at millimetre-wave frequencies.