Development of single‐stage and doherty GaN‐based hybrid RF power amplifiers for quasi‐constant envelope and high peak to average power ratio wireless standards

Abstract

AbstractThis article describes the design, realization, and characterization of a set of hybrid medium‐power RF power amplifiers, based on a commercial packaged GaN HEMT and developed through a low‐cost microstrip process. Two different design solutions suitable for wireless applications are presented: the first, intended for a constant envelope modulation (with reference to the GSM standard) is a Class F amplifier exhibiting at 900 MHz an efficiency of 72% with an output power of 37.5 dBm; the second, optimized for nonconstant envelope signals with high dynamics (with reference to the UMTS WCDMA standard) is a Doherty amplifier showing, at 2.14 GHz, an efficiency higher than 40% at 6 dB of output power back‐off with a maximum output power of 40 dBm. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 54:206–210, 2012; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com. DOI 10.1002/mop.26459