Novel Wideband Fully Integrated GaN Power Amplifier Design Using a Hybrid Bandpass-Lowpass Output Matching Network

This letter proposes a novel fully integrated harmonic-tuned wideband and high-efficiency GaN power amplifier (PA) for
$C$
-band application. The proposed PA employs a hybrid bandpass-lowpass output matching network (OMN) that offers fundamental impedance matching, drain biasing as well as harmonic control with only two inductors. The proposed PA is designed and fabricated using a commercial
$0.25~\mu \text{m}$
GaN-on-SiC HEMT process. Measurement results show that, over a frequency band of 3.8–6.4 GHz, this PA can provide a saturation output power of 38.3–40.2 dBm and excellent peak power-added efficiency (PAE) of 50%–63% with a chip size of
$1.5\times2.25$
mm
²
. When excited by a 100 MHz 64-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) signal, without using any digital pre-distortion (DPD), the proposed PA can deliver an average PAE >33% with an adjacent channel power ratio (ACPR)
$ < -35$
dBc and an error vector magnitude (EVM) of 2.4%–5.1% over 3.8–6.4 GHz.