Design and Analysis of a High Linearity Full Ka -Band Stacked-FET Power Amplifier Using 0.15- µ m GaAs pHEMT Process

This letter presents the design and measured performance of a full Ka-band stacked-FET power amplifier (PA) fabricated using the 0.15-[Formula Omitted] Gallium arsenide (GaAs) pHEMT process. A stacked FET configuration is adopted in the power stage of the PA to achieve wideband power performance and linearity improvement at high input power. Measurements indicate that the proposed PA has a small-signal gain of 17 dB, a saturated output power ([Formula Omitted]) of 24.5 dBm, an output 1-dB compression point ([Formula Omitted]) of 24.3 dBm, and a power-added efficiency (PAE) of 33.3%. The bandwidth of the PA ranges from 26 to 40 GHz, and thus covers the entire Ka-band. The proposed PA exhibits high performance, which makes it suitable for the applications of 5G wireless systems.