Millimeter wave power amplifier with unconditionally stable devices

For portable communication terminals, power amplifiers on monolithic technology are needed. In this paper the design and test of a 60GHz monolithic power amplifier is presented. The amplifier uses PMHFET monolithic technology with 0.15 mu m mushroom gate length and microstrip structures. The chip size is 3mmx1.5mm. For the amplifier design, a PMHFET nonlinear model based on continuos DC and AC measurements up to V-band was obtained. Models for some of the microstrip discontinuities were obtained from EM simulations. An output power greater than 100mW at 62GHz with more than 10dB gain was achieved. A power added efficiency of 16% was measured with V-DS=2.5V.