A 0.6–2.4 GHz broadband GaN HEMT power amplifier with 79.8% maximum drain efficiency

Abstract

A highly efficient and broadband 10 W GaN HEMT power amplifier (PA) is presented, which employs the hybrid PA mode, transferring between continuous Class-F, continuous Class-B/J and continuous inverse Class-F. A GaN PA is designed and realized based on this mode-transferring operation using low-pass filter output matching network. The maximum theoretical efficiency of this hybrid continuous modes PA is more than 78.5%. Specifically, the operating bandwidth is determined by the low pass filter output matching network and the theoretical bandwidth can achieved multi-octave. The proposed design strategy is experimentally verified by a 0.6–2.4 GHz PA design with 79.8% maximum drain efficiency and 10 W output power. The footprint of the fabricated PA is 75 mm × 40 mm.