Design and analysis of a 34 dBm Ka-band GaN high power amplifier MMIC

This paper presents the design and analysis issues related to the use of recent GaN technologies for realizing high power millimeter wave MMICs. Two GaN Ka-band amplifier MMICs have been designed, fabricated and characterized. The small-signal and power measurement results are presented for both amplifiers, with an excellent output power of 34.1 dBm at 27 GHz for the 2-stage power amplifier MMIC. Both MMICs have a very good yield and performance, even more so in regard of the current state-of-the-art. The observed deviations between the original simulation and measurements have been explained by extensive use of 3D EM simulations of the coplanar passive structures