Eighty nine-watt cascaded multistage power amplifier using gallium nitride-on-silicon high electron mobility transistor for L-band radar applications

Abstract

This work presents a gallium nitride (GaN) high electron mobility transistor (HEMT)–based cascaded multistage power amplifier (MPA) in class-AB for L-band radar applications. The purpose of this endeavour is to develop an MPA using GaN HEMT devices to achieve optimised parameters such as high gain, high power, better efficiency, and linearity in a compact size. In an MPA design with multiple stages, oscillations are common owing to unwanted high gain at the lower frequency range. To overcome this issue, we introduced interstage harmonic termination networks as a novel approach to suppress high gain at low frequencies, which are prone to oscillations. The proposed cascaded MPA provides the maximum radio-frequency output power of 89 W and a power gain of 52 dB with an associated power-added efficiency of 51%. Second and third harmonic levels are −32.5 and −37 dBc, respectively. Two-tone measurements are performed with a frequency separation of 10 MHz, and an intermodulation level of less than −33 dBc is achieved.