• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.22 no.11
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• pp.1034-1046
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• 2011

In this paper, a design and fabrication of 40 W power amplifier for the X-band using load-pull measurement of GaN HEMT chip are presented. The adopted active device for power amplifier is GaN HEMT chip of TriQuint company, which is recently released. Pre-matched fixtures are designed in test jig, because the impedance range of load-pull tuner is limited at measuring frequency. Essentially required 2-port S-parameters of the fixtures for extraction optimal input and output impedances is obtained by the presented newly method. The method is verified in comparison of the extracted optimal impedances with data sheet. The impedance matching circuit for power amplifier is designed based on EM co-simulation using the optimal impedances. The fabricated power amplifier with 15${\times}$17.8 $mm^2$ shows the efficiency above 35 %, the power gain of 8.7~8.3 dB and the output power of 46.7~46.3 dBm at 9~9.5 GHz with pulsed-driving width of 10 usec and duty of 10 %.