A 200 mW, High-Gain Gan-Based D-Band Power Amplifier for 6G Communication Applications

This paper presents a 6-stage D-band power amplifier (PA) microwave monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC) for 6 G communication applications. The circuit is designed to provide a uniform performance over the design frequency range, which stretches from 130 to 150 GHz. An explanation of critical features of the underlying <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$70-\text{nm}$</tex> gallium nitride (GaN) on silicon carbide (SiC) high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) technology, as well as a detailed elaboration on design principles are given. The presented MMIC achieves a saturated output power (<tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\boldsymbol{P}_{\text {sat }}$</tex>) of more than <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathbf{2 0 0 ~ m W}$</tex> and a power-added efficiency (PAE) of more than 8 %. Moreover, the output-referred 1-dB compression point (<tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$O P_{1-\text{dB}}$</tex>) and small-signal gain (<tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\left\vert S_{21}\right\vert$</tex>) are as high as 18.8 dBm and 29.7 dB, respectively.