A full Ka-band waveguide-based spatial power-combining amplifier using e-plane anti-phase probes

A full Ka-band solid-state power amplifier has been presented and designed using a waveguide-based spatial power-combining technique based on E-plane anti-phase probes. The power divider/combiner employed in this design provides not only a high power-combining efficiency over a full waveguide bandwidth, but also efficient heat sinking for the active power devices. A simple design approach for the power divider/combiner has been developed. The measured insertion loss of the power divider/combiner is less than 0.25dB across the 26-40GHz band. The measured output saturated power of the solidstate amplifier is higher than 27.5dbm over the entire Ka-band. The obtained power-combining efficiency is from 83% to 90% in this frequency band. These results indicate that the proposed power-combining scheme is suitable for implementation of low cost, broadband power amplifiers operating at millimeter wave frequency.