Manufacturable 4W GaAs WLAN amplifier module for 5GHz applications

A manufacturable 4W three stage amplifier module for 5GHz wireless LAN applications has been developed using GaAs pulse-doped MESFET technology, a non-hermetic package, clip lead, and printed circuit board (PCB). The first and second stages of the amplifier are integrated into single MMIC chip (monolithic microwave integrated circuit). The third stage utilizes a long gate width FET of 12.6mm, in order to obtain high output power. A high dielectric constant ceramic substrate is used to partially match the MMIC and pulse-doped MESFET at the input and output. These partially matched stages are assembled in the PCB module where surface mount devices (SMD) are used to achieve the necessary amplifier performance. The power amplifier module exhibits a power gain of 26dB, an output power at 1dB compression point (P1dB) of 36 dBm between 5.03GHz and 5.091GHz. A 5.6% error vector magnitude (EVM) is obtained at 54Mbps OFDM (IEEE802.11a standard) signal under output power of 28.7dBm.