0.5 W 2-21 GHz monolithic GaAs distributed amplifier

A novel circuit concept to reduce the gate loss using series capacitors on the gate feeding lines has been implemented for a distributed amplifier design. It has significantly increased the gate width of an amplifier with a resultant increase of the broadband output power and efficiency. A monolithic GaAs distributed amplifier using 6 × 300 μm FETs has achieved a record output power of 0.5 W over the 2 to 21 GHz frequency band with at least 4 dB gain. The poweradded efficiency was 14%. The linear gain was 5 + 1 dB over the same frequency band.