An 84 GHz DAT-based power amplifier with 18 dBm P_sat utilizing an ultra-symmetric dual-differential power divider

Abstract

An ultra-symmetric dual-differential power divider based on the low loss CPW and transformer for the distributed active transformer (DAT) based power amplifiers (PA) has been introduced in this Letter. Two millimeter-wave PAs with different power dividers are compared. Experimental results show that the PA2 with the proposed power divider achieves 18 dBm saturated output power (P_sat) at 84 GHz, which exceeds that of the PA1 with the typical dual-differential power divider by 1.35 dB. The power gain and power-added efficiency (PAE) of PA2 are 24.4 dB and 12.63%, respectively. The PA2 occupies a die area of 0.48 mm².