A 24–30 GHz GaN-on-SiC T/R Front-End Module with 37.1-dBm Output Power and 34.4% PAE

This paper presents a 24-30 GHz T/R FEM on a 150-nm GaN-on-SiC HEMT process. The transmitting chain is constructed by two fully symmetrical push-pull PA with a balun as the power distributing network. The waveform engineering technique is used in the impedance matching for high efficiency. The receiving chain consists of a three-stage low-noise amplifier (LNA) with a gain of over 20 dB and wideband noise matching across the operation bandwidth. A high-order stacked-transistor single-pole double-throw (SPDT) switch is designed with a low insertion loss of 0.75 dB and an IP1dB of 44 dBm, ensuring no gain compression in transmitting mode. In measurement, the proposed FEM operating across 24-30 GHz demonstrates a peak Psat of 37.1 dBm and peak power added efficiency (PAE) of 34.4% in the Tx mode. In the Rx mode, the FEM demonstrates an NF of less than 3.1 dB with a gain of 20-21.3 dB.