Extremely high P1dB MMIC amplifiers for Ka-band applications

In this paper we describe single stage and two-stage MMIC power amplifier data at Ka-band. An extremely high P1dB power density of 700 mW/mm and 571 mW/mm were measured for the 1-stage and 2-stage GaAs HEMT MMIC amplifiers respectively. When biased for optimal IP3, 4.5 W/mm and 2.1 W/mm were achieved respectively. The performance of the latter 2-stage MMIC PA is achieved in a very compact design of 4.08 mm/sup 2/ total MMIC area. These are believed to be among the best numbers reported for linear power amplifiers at Ka-band.