A mm-Wave Parallel-Combined Power Amplifier Supporting Balanced/Unbalanced Mode for 5G NR FR2 Applications

This letter presents a millimeter-wave power amplifier (PA) monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) for 5G new radio (NR) phased array base stations. The balanced/unbalanced-mode broadband power combining is used in the proposed PA to obtain higher linearity and efficiency at the 5G-n257/n258/n261 bands. Fabricated in a 0.15-mu m GaAs pHEMT process, the PA delivers 22-dBm saturated output power (P-OUT) with maximum power-added efficiency (PAE) of 36.5% under a 3-V supply at 23-30 GHz. With the 5G NR FR2 200-MHz 1-CC 64-QAM modulated signal, the PA achieves an average POUT of 13.5/12.5 dBm and PAE of 7.5%/7.6% with rms error vector magnitude (EVM) of -28/-25 dB in balanced/unbalanced mode.