V-Band Solid-State Power Amplifiers for SATCOM Downlinks

Linearizer Technology GOV LLC (LTGOV) proposes to produce a V-band (71-76 GHz) GaN solid-state power amplifier (SSPA) with the goals of a) a linear output power exceeding 30 watts, b) a linearity required for the efficient transmission of complex digital modulations such as 16QAM, and c) the highest possible power added efficiency (PAE) for use in space. LTGOV is a wholly owned affiliate of Linearizer Technology Inc. (LTI) established to work on government funded programs. LTI is a small business and has many years of experience producing linearizers for the millimeter-wave bands. LTI through its affiliated space organization, Linear Space Technology (LST) has 100 linearizers and linearized SSPAs in orbit with more than 6 million hours of anomaly free operation. It also has produced linearizers and documented their performance to 100 GHz. For linear downlink applications the use of linearization is essential. LTGOV will use its expertise in linearization to give its SSPA design a PAE advantage. In Phase I, LTGOV will exploit its GaN SSPA space experience to demonstrate it can produce an SSPA meeting the design goals and to insure it’s design is qualifiable. In Phase II, LTGOV will design and fabricate a space-qualifiable SSPA.