A High Output Power 1 – 150 GHz Distributed Power Amplifier in InP HBT Technology

A high output power monolithic microwave/millimeter-wave integrated circuit (MMIC) distributed amplifier (DA) is demonstrated in an Indium Phosphide (InP) hetero-junction bipolar transistor (HBT) process. The DA employs nine double-stacked HBT gain unit cells with the proposed parallel/series metal-insulator-metal (MIM) configuration for the input coupling capacitors. The fabricated amplifier achieves a measured average gain of 11.5 dB over a 3 dB bandwidth from 1 to 150 GHz with a noise figure (NF) of 10.3 dB. The maximum measured saturated power (Psat) is 18.3 dBm with the corresponded 1-dB gain compression power (P1dB) of 15.4 dBm at 50 GHz. The power-added-efficiency (PAE) of the amplifier is 10 % at 100 GHz.