An SMT Packaged 4-Channel mm-Wave PA for 5G Applications

5G mobile devices operating at mmWave will incorporate electronic beam steering to address the difficulties of non-line of sight communications at these high frequencies. This requires the use of multiple parallel receive and transmit channels, which must be implemented in a low cost, compact manner. This presentation at the recent ARMMS RF & Microwave Society Conference describes the design of a 4-channel PA covering the 27.5 to 28.35GHz 5G band. It was realised as a single chip component on the 0.15µm E-mode GaAs PHEMT process of Sanan IC and is packaged in a standard over-moulded, 5mm x 5mm plastic QFN package. This results in a low cost, SMT compatible component suitable for incorporation into high volume commercial products. Each PA exhibits a gain of 20dB with an RF output power of 24.5dBm at 1dB gain compression with a PAE of 20%. When operated at 7dB back-off to preserve modulation fidelity the third order intercept point is 31dBm.