A D-band 20.4 dBm OP1dB Transformer-Based Power Amplifier With 23.6% PAE In A 250-nm InP HBT Technology

This paper presents a high-efficiency transformer-based D-band power amplifier (PA) in 250-nm InP HBT. The PA has a saturated output power of 21 dBm and peak power-added efficiency (PAE) of 23.6 %. The small-signal gain and bandwidth are 19.8 dB and 24.4 GHz respectively. Careful design of the biasing networks results in a record OP
1dB
and associated PAE of 20.4 dBm and 23% respectively. To the authors best knowledge this is the highest PAE ever reported at
$\mathrm{P}_{\mathrm{l}\mathrm{d}\mathrm{B}}$
for D-band power amplifiers, resulting in record output power and efficiency during modulated measurements up to 20 Gb/s.