A Linear InGaP/GaAs HBT Power Amplifier Using Parallel-Combined Transistors With IMD3 Cancellation

In this letter, we present a linear InGaP/GaAs HBT power amplifier (PA) with parallel-combined transistors for small-cell applications. Ballast resistors with bypass resistors and capacitors are employed in parallel-combined transistors. When the resistors and capacitors are set to appropriate values, IMD3 components of the parallel-combined transistors are found to be out of phase with each other by 180. and are canceled out at the output. The experimental results show that the proposed HBT PA with parallel-combined transistors produces a saturated output power of 33.5 dBm at 0.88 GHz, with a power-added efficiency (PAE) of 46.1% at a 5-V supply voltage. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed HBT PA for linearity improvement, the implemented PA is also tested with a long-term evolution (LTE) signal (8.1-dB PAPR with 10-MHz bandwidth). The proposed PA achieves an adjacent channel leakage ratio (ACLR) below -45 dBc at an average power of 25.6 dBm with a PAE of 18.8% without applying predistortion.