A Compact GaN-MMIC Non-Uniform Distributed Power Amplifier for 2 to 12 GHz

A non-uniform distributed power amplifier for the frequency range from 2 to 12 GHz is presented. The coplanar GaN MMIC has 1.8 x 2.4 mm(exp 2) chip size. It achieves over the whole frequency band a small-signal gain of 9 to 14 dB. The maximum output power of the amplifier reaches 35.5 and 39.5 dBm at 2 GHz and 10 GHz, respectively, while the PAE changes between 5 and 35 %. Benchmarking shows that the presented amplifier provides a good trade-off regarding bandwidth, output power, gain and power added efficiency (PAE).