Design of a Ka-Band Single-Chip Front-End based on a 100 nm GaN-on-Si technology

In this paper, a Single-Chip Front-End (SCFE) operating in Ka-Band (35–36.5 GHz) is presented. Chip is designed exploiting a GaN-on-Si technology featured by 100nm gate length provided by OMMIC foundry. This MMIC integrates high-power, low-noise amplification functionalities enabled by a couple of synchronous Single-Pole Double-Throw (SPDT) switches, occupying a total surface of 4.7×3 mm2. Transmit-mode (Tx) performance present a 36 dBm output power, a Power Added Efficiency (PAE) higher than 25% and a 20dB power gain at 2 dB compression. Regarding the receiving-mode (Rx) performance, a sub-3.2 dB Noise Figure (NF) and a linear gain just below the 32 dB level is obtained, with a I/O matching better than 20 dB, as well.