An 8–18 GHz broadband high power amplifier

Abstract

An 8–18 GHz broadband high power amplifier (HPA) with a hybrid integrated circuit (HIC) is designed and fabricated. This HPA is achieved with the use of a 4-fingered micro-strip Lange coupler in a GaAs MMIC process. In order to decrease electromagnetic interference, a multilayer AlN material with good heat dissipation is adopted as the carrier of the power amplifier. When the input power is 25 dBm, the saturated power of the continuous wave (CW) outputted by the power amplifier is more than 39 dBm within the frequency range of 8–13 GHz, while it is more than 38.6 dBm within other frequency ranges. We obtain the peak power output, 39.4 dBm, at the frequency of 11.9 GHz. In the whole frequency band, the power-added efficiency is more than 18%. When the input power is 18 dBm, the small signal gain is 15.7 ± 0.7 dB. The dimensions of the HPA are 25 × 15 × 1.5 mm3.