Title :
A C-Band AlGaN-GaN MMIC HPA for SAR
Author :
Florian, Corrado ; Cignani, Rafael ; Niessen, Daniel ; Santarelli, Alberto
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electron., Comput. Sci. & Syst. (DEIS), Univ. of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
Abstract :
A C-Band MMIC high power amplifier (HPA) has been designed exploiting a 0.25 μm HEMT GaN process on SiC substrate. The HPA is designed for future synthetic aperture radar (SAR) antenna applications. The HPA delivers 16 W output power with PAE over 38% at 6 dB gain compression within a 900 MHz bandwidth around 5.75 GHz. Up to 20 W output power and 40% PAE are obtained at higher gain compression. A comparison with another amplifier, differing only for the layout of the devices in the final stage, points out that the transistor thermal conditions represent the main limitation for this high power density technology.
Keywords :
III-V semiconductors; MMIC amplifiers; aluminium compounds; gallium compounds; high electron mobility transistors; microwave field effect transistors; radar antennas; synthetic aperture radar; wide band gap semiconductors; AlGaN-GaN; C-band MMIC HPA; C-band MMIC high power amplifier; HEMT process; SAR antenna applications; SiC; bandwidth 900 MHz; gain 6 dB; high power density technology; power 16 W; size 0.25 mum; synthetic aperture radar; transistor thermal conditions; Gain; Gallium nitride; HEMTs; MMICs; Performance evaluation; Power generation; Synthetic aperture radar; GaN; MMIC; high power amplifier (HPA);
Journal_Title :
Microwave and Wireless Components Letters, IEEE
DOI :
10.1109/LMWC.2012.2212238
