A 20–30GHz Compact PHEMT Power Amplifier Using Coupled-Line Based MCCR Matching Technique

This paper presents a 20-30 GHz differential power amplifier (PA) in 0.15-µm GaAs pHEMT process. Magnetically and capacitively coupled resonator (MCCR) is used to realize broadband matching networks. Coupled-line is used to constitute the MCCR in a compact size and the design procedure is also presented. The proposed PA achieves a measured saturated output power (Psat) of 23 dBm with 19.4% peak power added efficiency (PAE) at 26 GHz. The gain is higher than 19 dB over a wide frequency range from 20 to 30 GHz. This chip occupies a small area of only 1.05 mm² thanks to the coupled-line based MCCR matching network.