I don't have a lot of experience in this but my gut tells me pushing interstage gains to the 1 dB compression point is too much. When I did that with the MMIC boards the IMD jumped dramatically at even 0.5 dB compression and was borderline unacceptable at 1.0 dB. 1 dB compression, in my experience, generally makes my goal of -30 dBc third/fifth order IMD unattainable. I would not plan for any measurable compression for interstage blocks..... but that is me.
WA8TOD
