A 2.4 GHz packaged power amplifier using GaAs PHEMT technology

This paper describes the design and measured performance of Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) power amplifier for wireless LAN applications in the 2.4GHz band. The power amplifier (PA) is designed using 0.15μm GaAs power PHEMT technology. The die size of this PA is 1.2mm × 0.7mm and this PA is also offered in 16-pin QFN package. With only 3.0 V of drain voltage (V_DS), the packaged PA exhibits an output power at 1dB gain compression (P1dB) of 14.01 dBm, Power-Added Efficiency (PAE) of 31.70% and gain of 7.51 dB, respectively. The maximum current, Imax of this packaged amplifier is 77.90mA and the power consumption for the device is 233.70mW.