Q-Band MMIC High Power Amplifiers for High Throughput Satellites in GaN-on-Si Technology

This paper reports the design and experimental characterization of two Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits (MMICs) High Power Amplifiers (HPAs) specifically conceived for next generation Q-band high throughput satellites. Both chips have been realized on a commercially available 100 nm gate length Gallium Nitride on Silicon (GaN-Si) process. In the design phase, the selection of the device' bias points and the matching network topologies was driven, and then accomplished, by carefully considering the thermal constraints of the technology in order to keep the junction temperature of all devices lower than 160 C, as mandatory for space applications. Both MMICs, based on a four stage architecture, have been fully characterized in continuous wave from 37.5 GHz to 42.5 GHz. In such frequency band, the first HPA delivers more than 33 dBm output power with 24% and 20 dB of Power Added Efficiency (PAE) and gain, respectively. The second one achieves about 35.5 dBm output power with 22% PAE and 21 dB of associated gain.