Michael Roberg

Michael Roberg received the Ph.D. degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2012. From 2003 to 2009, he was an engineer at Lockheed Martin-MS2 in Moorestown, NJ working on advanced phased array radar systems. From 2012 to 2022 he worked for Qorvo in the High Performance Analog business unit as a MMIC Design Engineering Fellow. In 2021, he received the Outstanding Young Engineer award from MTT-S and in 2022 he won the industry paper competition at IMS in Denver. From 2022-2024 he was an Engineering Fellow at mmTron, Inc. where he focused on MMIC development for millimeter wave systems.  Michael re-joined Qorvo as a member of the research organization in 2024 and continues to focus on advanced MMIC development.

This presentation discusses high power monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) power amplifier (PA) design in Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) and Gallium Nitride (GaN).  At a high level, GaN versus GaAs semiconductor technology from the perspective of power amplifier design metrics is analyzed to help determine the relative advantages and disadvantages of each technology.  This is followed with an introduction of the most prevalent MMIC design topologies for the bulk of microwave applications which include reactively matched, non-uniform distributed, balanced, push-pull, Doherty and serially combined.  Following introduction of the main topologies, the presentation focuses on the potential pitfalls the MMIC designer can encounter with detailed discussion on how to avoid them with the goal of first past design success.  The presentation relies on experience from the author’s career with over 20 years of experience in the defense and commercial industries as well as academia.  MMIC designers will appreciate the candid explanation of the design topologies and pitfalls while non-designers will come away with a good working knowledge of what can be achieved and what to watch out for.