A 1.2–2.0 GHz-band GaAs pHEMT cascode power amplifier MMIC consisting of independently biased transistors

An L-band wideband cascode power amplifier MMIC with independently biased GaAs pHEMTs is developed. This amplifier can independently control distortion and power-efficiency, achieved a power-added efficiency (PAE) above 53% from 1.2 to 2.0 GHz and third-order intermodulation distortion (IMD3) better than -40 dBc with a maximum PAE of 33.3% for a maximum output power of 17.0 dBm, and showed superior performance compared to a conventional cascode amplifier.