Microwave Journal
www.microwavejournal.com/articles/11653-hittite-s-first-gan-mmic-power-amplifier-delivers-10-w-from-10-mhz-to-10-ghz

Hittite's First GaN MMIC Power Amplifier Delivers 10 W from 10 MHz to 10 GHz

August 29, 2011

Hittite Microwave Corp., supplier of complete MMIC based solutions for communication and military markets, has introduced their first GaN HEMT MMIC Wideband Power Amplifier that is ideal for test & measurement equipment and military EW and ECM applications up to 10 GHz. The HMC999 is a GaN HEMT MMIC Distributed Power Amplifier Chip, which operates between 0.01 and 10 GHz. This wideband power amplifier provides 11 dB of gain, +38 dBm of output power at 1 dB gain compression and +47 dBm output IP3 at midband. For less demanding applications, the HMC999 can be operated from a drain voltage as low as +28V while still producing 5 W of saturated output power.

When biased for maximum output power, the HMC999 consumes 1100 mA of quiescent current from a +48V supply, and achieves approximately 18 percent power added efficiency at saturation. This compact MMIC power amplifier delivers 10 W of saturated output power in a chip area of only 7 mm2, equating to a power density of 1.5 W/mm2 across 3 decades of bandwidth. The HMC999 is extremely robust and is designed to reliably operate into partially reflective loads and to tolerate very high incident power levels.

The HMC999 is matched to 50 Ohms on-chip, and requires several external bias decoupling capacitors and an external bias tee for drain bias injection.