A Highly Efficient, Linear and Broadband GaN MMIC Power Amplifier

This thesis presents a novel 1W high PAE Linear Broadband monolithic microwave Asymmetric Distributed Power Amplifier (ADPA) design, which could be suitable for a wide range of 0.5 GHz – 6.5 GHz communication systems, such as LTE, CDMA, WIFI, WiMAX and GPS.;In addition, a stage-scaled ADPA is studied in simulation. A 0.17 dBm Pout variation and 1.90 % PAE variation is achieved over the 1 GHz – 7.5 GHz bandwidth, while 10 dB-gain and 30 dBm Pout are obtained over 0.5 GHz – 10 GHz bandwidth.;This design is based on GaN500 technology, and was fabricated at the Canadian Photonics Fabrication Centre (CPFC). The ADPA achieves a broadband performance by employing a distributed topology employing asymmetric tapered lines. The ADPA layout area is 2 mm × 2 mm, and consumes a total peak current of 369 mA from a 15 V voltage supply. Over the entire bandwidth, the device delivers more than 1W output power and higher than 20 % PAE; a peak saturated output power of 33.45 dBm and 38.1 % peak PAE exists at 0.5 GHz. By sweeping the bias voltages together with the input power, 52.69% PAE is achieved when output power is 31.96 dBm at 0.5 GHz. With the same device, 45.96 % PAE is obtained at 1 GHz.