A 77–100 GHz power amplifier using 0.1-μm GaAs PHEMT technology

Abstract

A wideband MMIC power amplifier at W-band is reported in this letter. The four-stage MMIC, developed using 0.1 μm GaAs pseudomorphic HEMT (PHEMT) technology, demonstrated a flat small signal gain of 12.4 ± 2 dB with a minimum saturated output power (Psat) of 14.2 dBm from 77 to 100 GHz. The typical Psat is better by 16.3 dBm with a flatness of 0.4 dB and the maximum power added efficiency is 6% between 77 and 92 GHz. This result shows that the amplifier delivers output power density of about 470 mW/mm with a total gate output periphery of 100 μm. As far as we know, it is nearly the best power density performance ever published from a single ended GaAs-based PHEMT MMIC at this frequency band.

On-Chip Temperature Compensation for Small-Signal Gain Variation Reduction

“…A PA is a key module of a millimeter-wave wireless communication system [ 1 , 2 , 3 ], and its performance directly determines the quality of a wireless communication system. Millimeter-wave communication systems, for example, wireless communication [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ], radars [ 8 , 9 , 10 ], satellites [ 11 , 12 ], and navigation [ 13 ], usually operate in outdoor or extremely harsh places with significant temperature variations, and the specifications of PAs are closely related to the temperature variation. Temperature variation leads to the specification degradation of PAs [ 14 , 15 , 16 ], which makes the millimeter-wave wireless communication system unable to meet the normal operation requirements or even fail [ 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 ].…”