This study presents a 10 W-class X-band three-stage power amplifier using a 0.2 μm GaN HEMT (high electron mobility transistor) process. The power amplifier monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC), fabricated with a chip size of 4×2 mm2, demonstrates a small-signal gain of 28.5 dB, a maximum saturated power exceeding 40 dBm, and a maximum power-added efficiency (PAE) of 51 % in the 8～10.5 GHz band. The fabricated power amplifier MMIC is applicable to the transmitter section of high-power X-band radar systems, including airborne active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars.
Kim et al. (Wed,) studied this question.