A 2.5-watt high frequency X-band power MMIC

Abstract

The design and performance of a two-stage molecular-beam epitaxy (MBE) monolithic power amplifier chip is presented. The monolithic chip contains full interstage matching, partial matching at the input, and no match at the output. When matched to 50 Omega at input and output using off-chip circuitry, the MMIC demonstrates an overall performance of 34 dBm (0.436 W/mm) of power, 36% of power-added efficiency (PAE), and 14.5 dB of associated gain across the band 9.0-10.0 GHz. The PAE was as high as 38% in parts of the band. The average performance of 26 devices from at least 12 wafers from 5 different runs is 33.6 dBm (0.4 W/mm), 32%, and 14 dB, respectively. The chip size is 0.081 in*0.070 in*0.003 in (2.06 mm*1.78 mm/sup 2/).<>