A 100-114 GHz GaAs MMIC Power Amplifier With Fully Integrated Dynamic Gate Bias Control for Linearization and Efficiency Enhancement

This paper presents a dynamically gate-biased MMIC power amplifier (PA) operating in the 100 to 114 GHz frequency range and designed using a 100 nm GaAs pHEMT process. The design comprises a PA, power detector, controller, and gate bias driver - thus fully implementing a dynamically gate-biased PA with programmable complex gain characteristics. The paper demonstrates successful dynamic control over power consumption and gain of the PA through the integrated dynamic gate bias circuit. Quasi-static simulations based on the measured AM/AM and AM/PM responses demonstrate that, at the spectrum emission mask limit, with integrated dynamic gate biasing, the PA achieves a 1.67 dB increase in average output power and its average power added efficiency (PAE) with a 4QAM signal was increased by 20% when compared for static biasing. To the best of our knowledge, this represents the first millimeter-wave fully MMIC-integrated dynamic gate-biased power amplifier in an III-V pHEMT process.