access icon free Broadband continuous mode power amplifier with on-board harmonic injection

© The Institution of Engineering and Technology
Received 09/10/2018, Accepted 25/03/2019, Revised 26/01/2019, Published 26/03/2019

This study presents the design of a broadband continuous mode power amplifier (PA) with an active harmonic injection (HI). Since the injected harmonic signal is generated on-board using a frequency doubler, this design has a single radio frequency input. The generated second harmonic is injected at the drain terminal of a gallium nitride high-electron-mobility transistor used in designing continuous class B/J PA. A design space in terms of amplitude and phase of the injected harmonic signal is analysed to obtain the loads that operate the PA in the continuous class B/J mode at the current generator reference plane. The proposed design strategy is verified by designing a prototype with a frequency doubler and a PA using 10 and 15 W gallium nitride high-electron-mobility transistors, respectively. The measured drain efficiency of 60.04–70.96% and output power of 40.17–42.6 dBm is obtained from 1 to 1.9 GHz. This corresponds to a broadband operation of 900 MHz with 62% fractional bandwidth. The designed HI–PA is also tested with a 20 MHz long-term evolution signal whose corresponding adjacent channel power ratio is better than −47.76 dBc in the overall band after applying digital predistortion.

Inspec keywords: wide band gap semiconductors; UHF power amplifiers; high electron mobility transistors; wideband amplifiers; III-V semiconductors; frequency multipliers; gallium compounds

Other keywords: power 10.0 W; frequency 20.0 MHz; frequency doubler; adjacent channel power ratio; on-board harmonic injection; long-term evolution; GaN; current generator reference plane; frequency 900.0 MHz; gallium nitride high-electron-mobility transistor; power 15.0 W; injected harmonic signal; efficiency 60.04 percent to 70.96 percent; frequency 1.0 GHz to 1.9 GHz; active harmonic injection; continuous class B/J mode; broadband continuous mode power amplifier; single radio frequency input; digital predistortion

Subjects: Amplifiers; Microwave integrated circuits; Convertors; Other field effect devices

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