A 10-W GaN on SiC CPW MMIC High-Power Amplifier With 44.53% PAE for X-Band AESA Radar Applications

Abstract

This article presents a novel X-band gallium nitride (GaN) on silicon carbide (SiC) co-planar waveguide (CPW) monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) highpower amplifier (HPA) design for radar applications. In design, 0.25 μm γ-shape gate and high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) with GaN on SiC technologies were utilized due to their high thermal conductivity and high-power handling capability. In addition, the reflection coefficients were below −10 dB in the frequency range from 8.5 GHz to 10.5 GHz which yields a fractional bandwidth of 21.05%. Moreover, MMIC HPA achieved a power-added efficiency (PAE) of 44.53% with an output power of 40.06 dBm in the 2 GHz bandwidth. Furthermore, the proposed MMIC HPA could be appropriate to be utilized in X-band active electronically scanned array radar applications owing to its high output power, wide operating bandwidth, high PAE, and compact size.