A Miniaturized 2.5 GHz 8 W GaN HEMT Power Amplifier Module Using Selectively Anodized Aluminum Oxide Substrate

In this paper, a design and fabrication of a miniaturized 2.5 GHz 8 W power amplifier using selectively anodized aluminum oxide(SAAO) substrate are presented. The process of SAAO substrate is recently proposed and patented by Wavenics Inc. which uses aluminum as wafer. The selected active device is a commercially available GaN HEMT chip of TriQuint company, which is recently released. The optimum impedances for power amplifier design were extracted using the custom tuning jig composed of tunable passive components. The class-F power amplifier are designed based on EM co-simulation of impedance matching circuit. The matching circuit is realized in SAAO substrate. For integration and matching in the small package module, spiral inductors and single layer capacitors are used. The fabricated power amplifier with 4.4×4.4 mm 2 shows the efficiency above 40 % and harmonic suppression above 30 dBc for the second(2nd) and the third(3rd) harmonic at the output power of 8 W.