Balanced AlGaN/GaN-HFET amplifier based on 111-Silicon substrate

In this work a modular low cost RF-amplifier system is presented, based on AlGaN/GaN-HFETs on 111-Si, hybrid integrated on PCB, consisting of single stage and balanced amplifier modules. 50 Ohm matching of the modules is realized with the use of commercial available SMDcomponents, allowing to cascade the individual modules. Depending on the setup of the system, either the total RFoutput power or power gain is increased. This concept results in more efficient heat sinking because of the resulting small transistor size in contrast to other concepts [1]. The concept and a special mounting technique allows to use low cost heat sinks like copper, keeping the total module cost down. The RF-amplifier system is realized and tested at 2 GHz. Presently the frequency range is extended to 5 GHz.