A 15-watt dual band HBT MMIC power amplifier (original) (raw)
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A compact H-band Power Amplifier with High Output Power
2021 IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium (RFIC), 2021
We report a compact H-band power amplifier with high output power in 250nm InP HBT technology. Stacking and parallel power combining together provide the desired output power. Common-base stages with base capacitive degeneration act as stacked power cells. Four power cells are combined by a compact low-loss 4:1 transmission line network. At 270GHz, the four-stage amplifier has 16.8dBm saturated output power with 4% power-added efficiency (PAE). Over 266-285GHz, the amplifier's saturated output power is 14-16.7dBm with an associated 2.2-4%PAE. The 3-dB small-signal bandwidth extends from 233GHz to 281GHz with a peak gain of 20.5dB at 264GHz. The amplifier has a compact area of 1.08mmx0.77mm and Psat/mm 2 of 57.6mW/mm 2. To the authors' knowledge, these results demonstrate a record output power and Psat/mm 2 for Hband amplifiers working around 270GHz.
W-band InP/InGaAs/InP DHBT MMIC power amplifiers
2002 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium Digest (Cat. No.02CH37278)
We report W-band MMIC class A power amplifiers in InP/InGaAs/InP DHBT transferred-substrate technology. A cascode amplifier with 64 µ µ µ µm 2 emitter area exhibits a peak small-signal gain of 10 dB at 90GHz and an output power of 9.5 dBm under 1 dB gain compression. An 8.5-dB-gain common-base amplifier with an emitter area of 128 µ µ µ µm 2 delivers 14 dBm output power at 85 GHz under 1 dB gain compression and 16.2 dBm (42 mW) saturated output power with an associated 4.6 dB gain. To our knowledge, this is highest reported output power for a Wband HBT power amplifier.
An X-band high-efficiency MMIC power amplifier with 20-dB return losses
IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, 1991
This paper describes the design principles and measured performance of our X-band high-efficiency MMIC power amplifier, and also includes a discussion of pertinent factors of our ion-implantation process. Also presented is a worst-case power prediction of the chip performance and a large-signal design using small-signal simulation. This balanced amplifier is fully monolithic with input and output return losses of better than 20 dB provided by Lange couplers. These return losses make it very convenient to cascade with other components. For high-efficiency operation, the drain voltage is 6 V. Across the 40% bandwidth from 8 to 12 GHz, the amplifier produces 1.6 to 2.1 W of output power at 33 to 40% power-added efficiency. For high-power operation, the drain voltage is 8.5 V. The amplifier can produce 2.4 to 2.8 W of output power at 26 to 29% power-added efficiency across the same 40% bandwidth.
IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, 2007
This paper describes technologies of miniaturized high-power low-distortion GaAs HBT power amplifiers with a low-voltage operation for mobile terminals used in 5-6 GHz broadband wireless applications. In conjunction with diode-based linearizing techniques, wideband matching network techniques including trap circuits for second harmonics allow us to obtain a compact broadband power amplifier module with harmonic filtering, achieving the high linear output power at a low supply voltage together with the low distortion and the low second-harmonic spurious outputs in a wide frequency range. The fabricated power amplifier exhibited linear output power levels of 21 and 22 dBm at EVM values of 2.0 and 3.0%, respectively, measured with 54 Mb/s 64-QAM-OFDM signals at a supply voltage of 3.3 V in a frequency range of 5-6 GHz. Second harmonic spurious outputs below 35 dBc were also attained.
A Compact 8W S/C-Band MMIC Power Amplifier Designed for CW Telemetry Applications
2006 European Microwave Integrated Circuits Conference, 2006
The development of a compact S/C-Band PHEMT MMIC power amplifier is reported. The MMIC is a single-biased two-stages HPA with a 15 mm gate-width output transistor. In the 3.5-4.0 GHz frequency bandwidth, CW output power is 39.0 ± 0.25 dBm, associated gain is 16.5 ± 0.25 and PAE ranges from 30 to 35 %; in pulsed operation mode (10% duty cycle), for the 3.5-4.3 GHz frequency bandwidth the output power is 39.5 ± 0.2 dBm and the associated gain is 19.5 ± 0.2 dB.
H-Band Power Amplifier Integrated Circuits Using 250-nm InP HBT Technology
IEEE Transactions on Terahertz Science and Technology, 2015
In this paper, H-band (220-325 GHz) power amplifier (PA) integrated circuits (ICs) are presented using 250-nm InP HBT technology, where a cascode topology was adopted to achieve high gain and high output power. Three PAs were designed: PA1 was implemented with two-stage cascode HBTs, PA2 combined two PA1s, and PA3 combined four PA1s, by using Wilkinson couplers without isolation resistors. Electromagnetic simulations were carried out for the accurate design of passive circuits such as a microstrip line, a capacitor, and RF pads. The measured insertion loss of the RF pad and Wilkinson coupler was as low as 0.24 dB and 0.70 dB, respectively, at 300 GHz. The three PAs exhibited a measured gain higher than 15 dB with good return losses at 300 GHz. The output powers scaled well with total emitter area of the PAs. PA3 exhibited a maximum output power of 13.5 dBm at 301 GHz. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this corresponds to the highest output power among the previously reported solid-state PAs in this frequency range.
G-band (140-220 GHz) and W-band (75-110 GHz) InP DHBT medium power amplifiers
IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, 2005
We report common-base medium power amplifiers designed for-band (140-220 GHz) and-band (75-110 GHz) in InP mesa double HBT technology. The common-base topology is preferred over common-emitter and common-collector topologies due to its superior high-frequency maximum stable gain (MSG). Base feed inductance and collector emitter overlap capacitance, however, reduce the common-base MSG. A single-sided collector contact reduces ce and, hence, improves the MSG. A single-stage common-base tuned amplifier exhibited 7-dB small-signal gain at 176 GHz. This amplifier demonstrated 8.7-dBm output power with 5-dB associated power gain at 172 GHz. A two-stage common-base amplifier exhibited 8.1-dBm output power with 6.3-dB associated power gain at 176 GHz and demonstrated 9.1-dBm saturated output power. Another two-stage common-base amplifier exhibited 11.6-dBm output power with an associated power gain of 4.5 dB at 148 GHz. In the-band, different designs of single-stage common-base power amplifiers demonstrated saturated output power of 15.1 dBm at 84 GHz and 13.7 dBm at 93 GHz. Index Terms-InP heterojunction bipolar transistor, millimeterwave amplifier, monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) amplifiers. I. INTRODUCTION W-BAND (75-110 GHz) and-band (140-220 GHz) amplifiers have applications in wide-band communication systems, atmospheric sensing, and automotive radar. The high mobility of InGaAs, high electron saturation velocity of InP, and submicrometer scaling result in wide-bandwidth transistors with high available gain in this frequency band. In a transferred substrate InP HBT process, 6.3-dB gain is reported at 175 GHz with a single-stage amplifier [1]. State-of-the-art results in InP high electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) technologies include a three-stage amplifier with 30-dB gain at 140 GHz [2], a three-stage amplifier with 12-15-dB gain from 160 to 190 GHz [3], and a three-stage power amplifier with 10-dB gain from 144 to 170 GHz [4].