This letter presents the design and experimental characterization of a $K$ -band high power amplifier (HPA) monolithic microwave-integrated circuit (MMIC) for the next generation of very high throughput satellites (vHTS). The MMIC is a three-stage balanced amplifier realized on a commercial 100-nm gate length gallium nitride on silicon (GaN-Si) technology. The design is compliant with space reliability constraints and, despite the larger thermal resistance and losses shown by the silicon (Si) substrate with respect to the more common silicon carbide (SiC), the realized HPA delivers, in pulsed condition, a peak output power larger than 41 dBm in the operative band from 17.3 to 20.2 GHz, with an associated power added efficiency (PAE) and gain up to 40% and 26 dB, respectively. In continuous wave (CW) operative conditions and with a backside temperature of 85 °C, the MMIC delivers a minimum output power and PAE of 39.4 dBm and 28%, respectively. Moreover, a 24-h test at saturated power has shown almost negligible performance degradations, thus providing confidence in the selected GaN-Si technology’s robustness.

中文翻译：

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适用于超高吞吐量卫星的17.3–20.2 GHz GaN-Si MMIC平衡HPA

这封信介绍了一种燃料电池的设计和实验特性。 $ K $ 下一代超高吞吐​​量卫星（vHTS）的宽带高功率放大器（HPA）单片微波集成电路（MMIC）。MMIC是一种三级平衡放大器，基于商业化的100 nm栅极长度的硅氮化镓（GaN-Si）技术实现。该设计符合空间可靠性的限制，尽管硅（Si）衬底相对于更常见的碳化硅（SiC）表现出更大的热阻和损耗，但实现的HPA在脉冲条件下仍可提供峰值输出功率在17.3至20.2 GHz的工作频带中，功率大于41 dBm，并具有相关的功率附加效率（PAE），增益分别高达40％和26 dB。在连续波（CW）操作条件下，背面温度为85°C，MMIC的最小输出功率和PAE为39。分别为4 dBm和28％。此外，在饱和功率下进行的24小时测试显示出几乎可以忽略的性能下降，从而使人们对所选GaN-Si技术的坚固性充满信心。