Highly Efficient Asymmetric Class-F−1/F GaN Doherty Amplifier

Abstract

This paper presents a new asymmetric Class-F−1/F Doherty power amplifier (DPA) consisting of a Class-F−1 carrier amplifier and a Class-F peaking amplifier. The asymmetric current waveform due to different harmonic loading conditions offers an asymmetric fundamental current in load modulation region, ensuring an improvement in the performance at the peak output power. In this paper, improvements in the large signal performances, such as the output power and efficiency, are analyzed using the derived fundamental current models. For verification, a 2.4-GHz GaN Class-F−1/F DPA was designed and fabricated. The designed Class-F−1/F DPA achieves a peak output power of 44 dBm with a peak drain efficiency (DE) of 86.7%. Using a local thermal equilibrium 10-MHz signal with a 6.6-dB peak-to-average power ratio, the Class-F−1/F DPA achieves an average output power of 37.3 dBm with a DE of 68% at a supply voltage of 28 V. The measured adjacent channel leakage power ratio with a digital predistortion is below −50 dBc.