Design of a Dual-Band Load-Modulated Sequential Amplifier with Extended Back-off

Abstract

This letter presents a dual-band load-modulated sequential amplifier (LMSA). The proposed amplifier changed the attenuator terminated at the isolation port of the four-port combiner of the traditional sequential power amplifier (SPA) architecture into a reactance modulation network (RMN) for load modulation. The impedance can be maintained pure resistance by designing RMN, thus realizing high efficiency and a good portion of the output power in the multiple bands. Compared to the dual-band Doherty power amplifier with a complex dual-band load modulation network (LMN), the proposed LMSA has advantages as maintaining high output power back-off (OBO) efficiency, wide bandwidth and simple construction. A 10-watt dual-band LMSA is simulated and measured in 1.7-1.9 GHz and 2.4-2.6 GHz with saturated efficiencies 61.2-69.9% and 54.4-70.8%, respectively. The corresponding 9 dB OBO efficiency is 46.5-57.1% and 46.4-54.4%, respectively.