Ku-band monolithic 2.5-watt power amplifier for high volume applications

The design, tuning, and performance of a 2.5-watt Ku-band power amplifier are presented. The circuit, which was designed to cover the 16-GHz to 17-GHz band, was modified with some on-chip tuning to correct for unmodeled coupling because of the dense circuit layout and a cross model error in the computer-aided design program. The on-chip tuning flexibility was then used to achieve a 2.5-watt performance in the 14.5-GHz to 16-GHz band for a second amplifier design.<>