Highly efficient Doherty power amplifier using continuous inverse class‐F and class‐J hybrid mode

Abstract

A continuous inverse class-F (CCF−1) and class-J hybrid mode for the carrier power amplifier (PA) of the Doherty power amplifier (DPA) is proposed in this paper. In this hybrid mode, the carrier PA works in the CCF−1 mode at the saturated output power and the class-J mode at the low output power, which extends the design space of the conventional single continuous mode. A highly efficient Doherty power amplifier based on this hybrid mode is designed and fabricated using a CGH40010F 10 W GaN HEMT packaged device. The measurement results illustrate that drain efficiency (DE) of 67.2% to 81.7% at the saturated output power (Pout) and 50.4% to 60.1% at 6 dB output back-off (OBO) is achieved across the band 1.5 to 2.1 GHz with the saturated output power is about 43.3 to 44.6 dBm.