E-Band Power Amplifier with 32.2dBm Psat, 31.3dBm OP1dB Utilizing Commercial 0.10-μm GaAs pHEMT Technology

This paper introduces a four-stage, eight-way power amplifier monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) for E-band operation. Fabricated using <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$0.10-\mu \mathrm{m}$</tex> GaAs pHEMT technology, the MMIC integrates a nonuniform distributed power amplifier (NDPA) in the final stage and distributed matching network (DMN)-based amplifiers in the three cascaded driver stages. The NDPA enhances the total gate width, while pre-matched drain lines facilitate low-loss impedance matching, and shared drain lines reduce the overall size of the amplifier. The proposed PA achieves a peak saturated output power (Psat) of 32.2 dBm, an output power at <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$1-\text{dB}$</tex> compression (OP1dB) of 31.3 dBm, and a peak power added efficiency (PAE) of 12.5% at 72 GHz. To the best of the authors' knowledge, the chip demonstrates the highest output power among GaAs-based PAs, with an OP1dB comparable to GaN technologies.