V-band monolithic microwave integrated circuit with continuous wave output power of >23.5 dBm using conventional AlGaN/GaN-on-Si structure

Abstract

This letter reports an AlGaN/GaN-on-Si power amplifier (PA) monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) operating at V-band using advanced gate processing technology. The AlGaN/GaN-on-Si high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) employed a gate length of 100 nm with a double-deck shaped (DDS) field-plate, which resulted in a cut-off frequency of 68 GHz and a maximum oscillation frequency of 160 GHz at the drain voltage of 15 V with significant reduction in gate resistance and improvement of current collapse phenomenon. A 60 GHz three-stage PA MMIC composed of two 4 × 37 μm and an 8 × 37 μm AlGaN/GaN-on-Si HEMTs successfully demonstrated using the DDS field-plate gate technology, which exhibited a continuous wave output power of >23.5 dBm at the drain voltage of 18 V at 58 GHz. This is the highest output power performance for V-band power amplification based on AlGaN/GaN-on-Si technology.