Design of Broadband Continuous Mode MMIC Power Amplifiers With Bandwidth Improvement

Abstract

This paper presents the design of continuous mode monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) power amplifiers (PAs) with bandwidth improvement. The output matching network (OMN) satisfying the continuous mode in broadband can be efficiently constructed with LC resonant circuits. The bandwidth can be further improved through generating the new LC unit in OMN with a minimum number of components added possible. Two prototype MMIC PAs are demonstrated with 0.25µm Gallium Nitride (GaN) MMIC process. The measured drain efficiency is over 39.2% and 38.7% from 4.5 GHz to 6.5 GHz, respectively. When driven by 100-MHz modulated signals, two PAs exhibit great linearity performance with adjacent channel leakage ratio lower than -51.2 dBc and -53.4 dBc with digital predistortion.

Design of a broadband GaN 12 W power amplifier

“…7 Proper matching techniques can also be used to extend bandwidth. [9][10][11][12] Fan et al adopted a matching technique to achieve maximum output power within a wide operating frequency range from 25 to 37 GHz. 9 Doherty PAs also have advantages in broadband.…”

“…Li et al have presented an improved distributed PA operating from 12 to 46 GHz, which achieved a maximum saturated output power of 20.9 dBm 7 . Proper matching techniques can also be used to extend bandwidth 9–12 . Fan et al adopted a matching technique to achieve maximum output power within a wide operating frequency range from 25 to 37 GHz 9 .…”

A 23–29.5 GHz three‐stage mm‐wave GaN power amplifier using arbitrary two‐port complex‐impedance matching method

“…At present, most existing PAs related to the beautiful design and construction of buildings suffer from various limitations 12–43 . Harmonic controlled amplifiers are no longer applicable due to very little efficiency improvement as well as narrow bandwidth at mm‐wave band 12–14 .…”

“…Continuous mode PAs provide a wideband design theory by introducing larger impedance design space. Although continuous closed‐form design theory has been easily derived, this method is more complicated to operate 26–30 . Doherty, out‐phasing, and load‐modulated balanced PAs enjoy potentially back‐off efficiency but often are limited by owns' area and frequency bandwidth 31–36 …”

“…Although continuous closed-form design theory has been easily derived, this method is more complicated to operate. [26][27][28][29][30] Doherty, out-phasing, and load-modulated balanced PAs enjoy potentially back-off efficiency but often are limited by owns' area and frequency bandwidth. [31][32][33][34][35][36] However, it is an efficient way for improving PA gain to enhance the output power in the transmitter.…”