8 W C-band MMIC amplifier for space applications

A very high efficiency, low distortion C-band MMIC amplifier using a linear and nonlinear models of the PHEMT devices has been developed. The double stage MMIC amplifier fabricated with 2/spl times/3.6 mm gate width PHEMT and 2/spl times/12 mm gate width PHEMT exhibits an output power of 39 dBm at 2 dB of gain compression, a linear gain of 27 dB and an associated PAE of 42% in the frequency range of 3.5-4.4 GHz. These excellent results are performed by developing an exact non-linear model of the PHEMT device and optimizing the matching network of the amplifier.