A D-Band Power Amplifier with 12dBm P1dB, 10% Power Added Efficiency in InP-DHBT Technology

This paper presents a D-band power amplifier (PA) using 800 nm InP-DHBT technology. It consists of a driver stage with a 2-way combined cascade unit power cell. Measurements show 12 dB small signal gain. The output 1-dB compression point (OP1dB) and the saturated output power (Psat) occur around 12 dBm and 14 dBm, respectively. The maximum dc power consumption is 212 mW and results in a power-added efficiency (PAE) of up to 10% at 145 GHz. The chip area is only 1.5x1.2 mm ² . This amplifier demonstrates very similar Psat, OP1dB, and PAE values as compared to 250 nm InP-DHBT technologies.