Power amplifier MMICs for mmWave 5G

Liam Devlin speaking at the 2018 Interlligent RF Design Seminar. The roll-out of 5G promises a step change in wireless data-rates; one of the main strategies to facilitate this will be a move to mm-wave frequencies where large bands of contiguous spectrum are available. This presentation describes the design, realisation and evaluation of PAs for a number of the key candidate 5G bands: The European 26 GHz Pioneer band (24.25 to 27.5 GHz), the FCC licensed band at 28 GHz (27.5 to 28.35 GHz) and the FCC licensed band at 39 GHz (38.6 – 40 GHz). Details of the selected process, the key design goals, the topology, the design methodology and the packaging technology used are presented together with both simulated and measured performance. All parts were SMT packaged with the performance optimised for the packaged PA assembled onto a representative PCB.