A HIGH-EFFICIENCY GAN POWER AMPLIFIER WITH HARMONIC CONTROL BASED ON SI-IPDS

This article presents a high-efficiency power amplifier using quasi-MMIC technology. The efficiency enhancement is achieved based upon the second or third harmonic control provided by input and output matching networks. The gate-source voltage waveform control with Class-F operation achieves significant efficiency improvements. The quasi-MMIC technology using silicon-integrated passive devices ( Si-IPDs) can drive the solution to provide compact size at 2.4 GHz. The output matching network for Class-F operation is described, using lumped elements to reduce circuit size. The dimensions of the fabricated power amplifier are 3.6 mm 3 7.6 mm, with a thickness of 0.15 mm. The measured results show that the power amplifier has a small signal gain of about 10 dB and a Psat of 41.8 dBm with a maximum drain efficiency of 70.8% at 2.4 GHz. (C) 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.