A Study on the Effect of RF Termination Type on Distortion in a Multiband Power Amplifier

This work describes the design and measured com-parison of two 28-GHz MMIC power amplifiers (PAs) which are identical except for a difference in how the quarter-wavelength transmission line of the bias tee is terminated. The purpose of the presented study is to compare the effects of this termination on distortion of the PA output signal. In particular, the structure iso-lates a specific aspect of a dual-band or frequency-reconfigurable PA. Both MMICs are measured in CW and for modulated (2-tone) signals and demonstrate a saturated output power of 30 dBm with >30% measured PAE.