GaN HFET for W-band Power Applications

Abstract

In this paper we report high frequency GaN power device and measured power performance of the first W-band (75 GHz-110 GHz) MMIC fabricated in GaN material system. The first W-band GaN MMIC with 150 mum of output gate periphery produces 316 mW of continuous wave output power (power density =2.1 W/m) at a frequency of 80.5 GHz and has associated power gain of 17.5 dB. By comparison the reported state of the art for other solid state technologies in W-band is 427 mW measured in a pulsed mode on an InP HEMT MMIC with 1600 mum of output periphery (power density = 0.26 W/mm). The reported result demonstrates tremendous superiority of GaN device technology for power applications at frequencies greater than 75 GHz