A 1.5-to-17 GHz Non-uniform Distributed Power Amplifier Using Reconfigurable Modules in 0.25μm GaN HEMT

Abstract

This paper demonstrates a fully integrated high-output-power, ultra-wideband, and reconfigurable power amplifier. Based on the improved non-uniform distributed structure, a reconfigurable drain bias choke module, a reconfigurable gate bias choke module and a reconfigurable dumping load module are proposed. The reconfigurable power amplifier has an improvement in input matching, bandwidth, output power and power-added efficiency (PAE). Fabricated in 0.25um GaN process, Measurement results show 37.3-to-39.1 dBm saturated output power (P <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">sat</inf> ) with an average PAE of 31% at 2-to-6 GHz, 27% at 6-to-9 GHz, and 28% at 9-to-17 GHz.