Rapid Automated Optimization of a 10-Watt Millimeter-Wave MMIC Power Amplifier

This paper presents a rapid automated design methodology for MMIC Power Amplifiers (PA), and a three-stage Ka-band balanced power amplifier (BPA) is designed using this method. The proposed method employs the Implicit Space Mapping Algorithm (ISM) to shift the layout optimization burden to the schematic, where the schematic is optimized using the Simulated Annealing Algorithm (SA). The entire optimization process is automated through MATLAB, which integrates and calls the ADS and CST software. The MMIC designed by this method has a small signal gain of 20 dB in the frequency range of 37 - 44 GHz, a power - added efficiency (PAE) of 25% at a peak output power (Psat) of 10 W, and the chip size of only 2.5×3 mm².