A 5 W AlGaN/GaN power amplifier MMIC for 25–27 GHz downlink applications

This work presents the design and analysis of a 5 W power amplifier (PA) MMIC operating between 25 and 27 GHz. The technology used is the 0.1 µm AlGaN/GaN HEMT process of Fraunhofer IAF. To benchmark its performance around 26 GHz two preliminary designs are synthesized and analyzed. The measured results demonstrate for the final MMIC up to 5.2 W of output power associated with 32 % of power added efficiency (PAE). A peak PAE of 35 % was observed in continuous-wave (CW) operation at a drain supply voltage of 15 V.