A 50 W wideband hybrid Ku-band GaN-HEMT power amplifier for satellite communication

Within this work a hybrid Ku-band microwave integrated circuit (MIC) power amplifier (PA) is going to be described. The two-stage 250 nm GaN-HEMT design operates in the frequency range of 12.5-14.2GHz covering both Ku-band uplink frequency bands. The PA achieves more than 20% power added efficiency (PAE) over a fractional bandwidth (FBW) of 14% while holding 15 dB gain in its 1dB compression. A high output power level of 50 W represents enough drive level for very small aperture (VSAT) as well as satellite ground station applications.