Design of a Broadband Power Amplifier Based on Power and Efficiency Contour Estimation

Abstract

This letter presents the design of a broadband power amplifier (PA) that achieves, over the 0.45-3.4-GHz frequency band, an output power between 41.5 and 44.3 dBm and a power added efficiency (PAE) higher than 54%. A four-section transformer has been adopted as the output-matching network in order to target the impedance region defined by a simplified prediction of the power and efficiency contours. The designed PA can find application in flexible hardware for 5G applications, as well as in broadband radar and countermeasure systems.