Application of the Two-Way Balanced Amplifier Concept to Wide-Band Power Amplification Using GaAs MESFET's

An X-band GaAs FET power amplifier has been developed, significantly extending the bandwidth capabilities of such amplifiers reported to date. An output power of 1 W with an associated gain of 7.7 dB was achieved from 7.25 to 12.0 GHz by means of combining the power of two amplifier modules. Each of these modules consist of two balanced submodules cascaded to a two-stage unit. The transistor used in the "two-way balanced amplifier" has gate dimensions of 1000x1 mu m. The technology, RF performance, and characterization of the transistor are discussed in detail, as are the design and performance of both the single-ended and two-way balanced amplifier modules.

[1]  Hua Tserng,et al.  X-band MIC GaAs power FET amplifier module , 1978, 1978 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference. Digest of Technical Papers.

[2]  R.K. Gupta,et al.  Intermodulation Distortion in Microwave MESFET Amplifiers , 1979, 1979 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium Digest.

[3]  H. Tserng,et al.  Microwave Power GaAs FET Amplifiers , 1976 .

[4]  H. A. Willing,et al.  Wide-Band Gallium Arsenide Power MESFET Amplifiers , 1976 .

[5]  H. A. Willing,et al.  A Technique for Predicting Large Signal Performance of a GaAs MESFET , 1978 .

[6]  M. Cohn,et al.  A 10 Watt Broadband FET Combiner/Amplifier , 1979, 1979 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium Digest.

[7]  W. Hitchens,et al.  A 12-18 GHz medium-power GaAs MESFET amplifier , 1978, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[8]  R. J. Archer,et al.  InP Schottky-gate field-effect transistors , 1975, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.

[9]  R. Zuleeg,et al.  Voltage-current characteristics of GaAs J-FET's in the hot electron range☆ , 1970 .

[10]  R. Dawson,et al.  Equivalent circuit of the Schottky-Barrier field-effect transistor at microwave frequencies , 1975 .

[11]  A. Madjar,et al.  A Practical AC Large-Signal Model for GaAs Microwave MESFETs , 1979, 1979 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium Digest.

[12]  D. Hornbuckle,et al.  Broad-Band Medium-Power Amplification in the 2-12.4-GHz Range with GaAs MESFET's , 1976 .