Title :
A Monolithic 3.5-to-6.5 GHz GaAs HBT-HEMT/Common-Emitter and Common-Gate Stacked Power Amplifier
Author :
Shen, Chih-Chun ; Chang, Hong-Yeh ; Wang, Yu-Chi
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. Eng., Nat. Central Univ., Jhongli, Taiwan
Abstract :
This letter describes a monolithic 3.5-to-6.5 GHz stacked power amplifier (PA) in 2 μm /0.5 μm GaAs HBT-HEMT process. The proposed PA is designed using both HBT and HEMT. Based on a common-emitter (CE) configuration of HBT with a stacked common-gate (CG) configuration of HEMT, a better power performance of 3 dB improvement can be achieved as compared with the conventional CE or common-source amplifier due to high output stacking impedance. By using the proposed method, the stacked PA demonstrates a maximum output power of 29.4 dBm, a compact chip size of 1.5 × 1 mm2, and a maximum power added efficiency (PAE) of 38%. The output power of the proposed PA is higher than 26.5 dBm between 3.5 and 6.5 GHz.
Keywords :
III-V semiconductors; gallium arsenide; heterojunction bipolar transistors; high electron mobility transistors; microwave bipolar transistors; microwave field effect transistors; microwave power amplifiers; CE configuration; CG configuration; GaAs; common-emitter configuration; common-gate stacked power amplifier; common-source amplifier; efficiency 38 percent; frequency 3.5 GHz to 6.5 GHz; high output stacking impedance; monolithic HBT-HEMT-common-emitter stacked power amplifier; power added efficiency; size 0.5 mum; size 2 mum; stacked PA; Bandwidth; Gallium arsenide; HEMTs; Heterojunction bipolar transistors; Impedance; Power generation; GaAs; HBT; HEMT; microwave; power amplifier (PA);
Journal_Title :
Microwave and Wireless Components Letters, IEEE
DOI :
10.1109/LMWC.2012.2210034
