A monolithic MEMS switched dual-path power amplifier

Author

Kim, M. ; Hacker, J.B. ; Mihailovich, R.E. ; DeNatale, J.F.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Korea Univ., Seoul, South Korea

Volume

11

Issue

7

fYear

2001

fDate

7/1/2001 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

285

Lastpage

286

Abstract

RF MEMS switches have been successfully integrated with HEMT MMIC circuits on a GaAs substrate to construct a dual-path power amplifier at X-band. The amplifier uses two MEMS switches at the input to guide the RF signal between two paths. Each path provides single-stage amplification using different size HEMT devices, one with 80-μm width and the other with 640-μm. Depending on the required output power level, one of the two paths is selected to minimize the dc power consumption. Measurements showed the amplifier producing similar small signal gains of 13.2 and 11.5 dB at 10 GHz for the small and the large devices, respectively. The best PAE was 28.1 percent with 8.5 dBm of output power for the small device, and 15.3 percent with 14.6 dBm for the large device.

Keywords

HEMT integrated circuits; III-V semiconductors; MMIC power amplifiers; field effect MMIC; gallium arsenide; micromechanical devices; microwave switches; semiconductor switches; 10 GHz; 11.5 dB; 13.2 dB; 15.3 percent; 28.1 percent; 640 micron; 80 micron; GaAs; HEMT MMIC circuits; MEMS switched dual-path power amplifier; PAE; RF MEMS switches; X-band; dc power consumption; output power; output power level; single-stage amplification; small signal gains; Gallium arsenide; HEMTs; MMICs; Micromechanical devices; Power amplifiers; Power generation; Radiofrequency amplifiers; Radiofrequency microelectromechanical systems; Switches; Switching circuits;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Microwave and Wireless Components Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1531-1309

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/7260.933772

Filename

933772