High efficiency LOW AM/PM 6W C-band MMIC power amplifier for a space radar program

This paper describes the design of a compact C-band MMIC power amplifier. Intensive non-linear and electro-magnetic simulations with accurate table-based models allowed the chips to achieve very good performance. A linear gain of 28 dB, an output power greater than 6 W with 50 % of power added efficiency and 3°/dB of AM/PM conversion at 2.5 dB gain compression have been measured over production at ambient temperature in the useful bandwidth.