High Power Density 4 to 16 GHz Non-Uniform Distributed Power Amplifier with a Novel Trifilar

This paper describes the design and measured performance of a 4 to 16 GHz non-uniform distributed amplifier fabricated in a 0.15 μm commercial GaN process. The amplifier has 8.7-14.6 dB small-signal gain and produces 37.8-40.2 dBm CW output power with a PAE of up to 34% with good input and output match. It features novel trifilar transformers and spacesaving architecture that achieves an average power density of 1.06 W/mm
²
, which is the highest reported for similar well-matched broadband amplifiers.