High-power Ka-band Power Amplifier Chip Design

The MMIC (Microwave Millimeter Integrated Circuit) has many advantages, such as the low circuit loss, wide frequency range, low noise, large dynamic range, great output power and high PAE(Power Added Efficiency). Plus, the military and commercial products also benefit from the smaller size and lighter weight and less cost. The Ka band high power amplifier(HPA)discussed in this thesis is realized by MMIC method. The HPA is mainly used in phased array radar T/R module and is most important part of the phased array radar T/R module.According the development of the MMIC, the project adopts the method of multi-stage and multi-way to design the power amplifier. The research of the Ka-Band MMIC power amplifier is presented in the paper, including the introduction of the model and the passive component, thermal characteristic of the FET, the selective of the topology, matching network, the type of the bias circuit, and then the circuit layout is decided by the rule of the layout adjustment and the electromagnetism simulation.The designed MMIC Power Amplifier circuits are implemented with the 0.13μm GaAs Foundry of OMMIC. The circuit is a three stage design and pHEMT in each stage has a gate length of 14×50μm, and the total area of the layout is 3mm×6.2mm. With Vd s=6V and Vg s=-0.5V DC power supply, each stage is biased for class-A operation for optimal power output with minimal distortion. Over 30 to 32GHz, the circuit has a performance of 13dB small signal gain, input and output VSWR which are less than 3, PAE which is more than 15%. The output power at 1dB compression and saturated condition are respectivly 31dBm and 33dBm.