Design of mm-wave InP DHBT power amplifiers

In this paper suitable topologies for mm-wave integrated power amplifiers using InP DHBT technology is investigated. Among the standard topologies for mm-wave power cells: common-emitter, common-base, and cascode configuration, the cascode configuration proves the most promising in terms of output power, gain, and efficiency. The design issues associated with cascode based power amplifiers at mm-wave frequencies is described. The experimental results on a two-way combined single-stage cascode based InP DHBT power amplifier demonstrate 13.4dB linear power gain and 12.5dBm saturated output power at 69.6GHz.