X-band 10 W MMIC High-Gain Power Amplifier with up to 60 % PAE

Abstract—This paper describes a power amplifier operating at X-band demonstrating 61 % power added efficiency (PAE) at 10 GHz associated with 14 W output power in CW mode. The design uses a 0.15µm GaN 3MI process from TriQuintTM. The devices operate at a peak power density of 3.8 W/mm at 10 GHz with a PAE higher than 48 % over a 500-MHz bandwidth. The two-stage MMIC PA has a saturated gain of 19 dB at peak efficiency. The total size of the chip is 9.2 mm2. Keywords—Power Amplifiers, Gallium Nitride, high efficiency, MMIC, X-band