Broadband Drain-Bar-Supplied H-Band Power Amplifier with 70 GHz 3-dB Bandwidth of the Output-Related 1-dB Compression Point

This paper proposes a broadband eight-way drain bar-supplied H-band (220-325 GHz) power amplifier monolithic microwave integrated circuit that offers a record 3-dB bandwidth of 70 GHz of the output-related 1-dB compression point with a maximum of 7.8 dBm, as required, e.g., for high-throughput wire less communication systems. Exceeding the previously reported output power bandwidth of drain-bar supplied power amplifiers is achieved by applying a non-50-Ω impedance in the combiner network. The drain-bar is referred to as a low-ohmic connection that short-circuits the drains of the parallelized high-electron mobility indium gallium arsenide transistors in each stage. This separates the drain supply from the matching network design and allows for facilitating an eight-way power combining in the final stage, which enables 10.8 to 12.4 dBm measured output power between 245 and 290 GHz.