A 2W 9.5-16.5 GHz GaN Power Amplifier with 30% PAE Using Transformer-Based Output Matching Network

In this paper, a 9.5-16.5 GHz power amplifier (PA) with power-added efficiency (PAE) of 30% and output power of 2W is proposed in 0.25 µm GaN technology. A two-stage PA is implemented to achieve enough power gain. In order to obtain wide bandwidth at high frequency, a transformer output matching network is proposed, which absorbs the parasitic capacitance of the transistor. Compared to conventional single stage of transformer matching network, the proposed matching network can not only significantly extend matching bandwidth, but also does not add any extra circuit complexity, keeping a high PAE and compact chip size. With this technique, the measured PA produces a saturated output power of 33.1-34.7 dBm over 9.5-16.5 GHz band with 30.1-35.9 % PAE. The large signal gain varies between 11.1-12.7 dB. The chip size is 2.9 mm ×1.2 mm, including bondpads.