Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
  • Publication
    Extend High Efficiency Range of Doherty Power Amplifier by Modifying Characteristic Impedance of Transmission Lines in Load Modulation Network
    A load modulation network with characteristic impedance-modified transmission lines (TLs) is presented in this paper to extend the efficiency range and bandwidth of the Doherty power amplifier (DPA). Characteristic impedance values for designing the proposed DPA with different high efficiency ranges are given and wideband performance can also be achieved. A DPA with 2.55-3.35 GHz bandwidth using commercial GaN transistors is designed and implemented to validate the proposed architecture. The fabricated DPA achieves a measured 9.2-10.4 dB gain and 44.3-45.4 dBm saturated power. 57.9-75.6% and 47.6-58.8 % drain efficiency is achieved at saturation and 8 dB output power back-off (OBO) within the designed bandwidth, respectively. When driven by a 5-carrier 100 MHz OFDM signal with 8 dB peak to average power ratio (PAPR), the proposed DPA achieves adjacent channel leakage ratio (ACLR) of better than -50 dBc after digital pre-distortion with average efficiency of 53.4%, 55.3% and 56.6% at 2.75, 2.95 and 3.15 GHz centre frequencies.
      332Scopus© Citations 10
  • Publication
    Enhancing Bandwidth and Back-Off Range of Doherty Power Amplifier With Modified Load Modulation Network
    This article presents a novel methodology for designing a broadband Doherty power amplifier (DPA) with extended output power back-off (OBO) range. A modified load modulation network (LMN) is proposed to enhance the OBO range and the bandwidth of the DPA simultaneously. Analysis is conducted to explore the relationship between the proposed LMN parameters and the broadband performance under various OBO levels. Generalized design formulas of the LMN parameters are then introduced to offer the broadband solution for arbitrary current ratios and OBO levels. An asymmetric DPA is demonstrated and implemented with gallium nitride (GaN) transistors using the proposed approach. The fabricated DPA operates from 1.4 to 2.5 GHz with 9-dB OBO range. The measured drain efficiency reaches 61%-75.5% at saturation and 44.6%-54.6% at 9-dB OBO within the operating bandwidth. When driven by a 60-MHz modulated signal with 9-dB peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR), the fabricated DPA attains 47.4%-53.5% average drain efficiency and better than -45.5-dBc adjacent channel leakage ratio (ACLR) after digital predistortion.
    Scopus© Citations 28  468
  • Publication
    Multiband Dual-Mode Doherty Power Amplifier Employing Phase Periodic Matching Network and Reciprocal Gate Bias for 5G Applications
    This article presents a novel method to design the multiband Doherty power amplifier (DPA). It is illustrated that phase periodic matching networks (PPMNs) can be used as multiband impedance inverters, off-set elements, and phase compensators to realize multiband DPAs. Moreover, the number of Doherty operation bands can be further increased by employing the reciprocal gate biases. A six-band dual-mode DPA with 1.8-2.2-/3.9-4.3-GHz operation bands in Mode I and 1.52-1.72-/2.38-2.53-/3.67-3.82-/4.53-4.68-GHz operation bands in Mode II using commercial GaN transistors is designed and implemented to validate the proposed method. The fabricated DPA achieves 8.7-13.5-dB gain and 39.6-41.5-dBm peak output power at all the designed bands. Drain efficiency of 49.2%-54.5% and 42.2%-56.7% is measured at a 6-dB output back-off in Mode I and Mode II, respectively. When stimulated by a five-carrier 100-MHz OFDM signal with a 7.7-dB peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR), adjacent channel power ratio (ACPR) of better than -48.9 dBc can be obtained by the proposed DPA after digital predistortion with 35.5%-50.1% average drain efficiency at 1.65/1.95/2.45/3.75/4.1/4.6 GHz, respectively.
    Scopus© Citations 28  517
  • Publication
    Analysis and Design of Highly Efficient Wideband RF-Input Sequential Load Modulated Balanced Power Amplifier
    The analysis and design of an RF-input sequential load modulated balanced power amplifier (SLMBA) are presented in this article. Unlike the existing LMBAs, in this new configuration, an over-driven class-B amplifier is used as the carrier amplifier while the balanced PA pair is biased in class-C mode to serve as the peaking amplifier. It is illustrated that the sequential operation greatly extends the high-efficiency power range and enables the proposed SLMBA to achieve high back-off efficiency across a wide bandwidth. An RF-input SLMBA at 3.05-3.55-GHz band using commercial GaN transistors is designed and implemented to validate the proposed architecture. The fabricated SLMBA attains a measured 9.5-10.3-dB gain and 42.3-43.7-dBm saturated power. Drain efficiency of 50.9-64.9/ 46.8-60.7/43.2-51.4% is achieved at 6-/8-/10-dB output power back-off within the designed bandwidth. By changing the bias condition of the carrier device, higher than 49.1% drain efficiency can be obtained within the 12.8-dB output power range at 3.3 GHz. When driven by a 40-MHz orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) signal with 8-dB peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR), the proposed SLMBA achieves adjacent channel leakage ratio (ACLR) better than -25 dBc with an average efficiency of 63.2% without digital predistortion (DPD). When excited by a ten-carrier 200-MHz OFDM signal with 10-dB PAPR, the average efficiency can reach 48.2% and -43.9-dBc ACLR can be obtained after DPD.
      875Scopus© Citations 58
  • Publication
    Three-Stage Load Modulated Power Amplifier With Efficiency Enhancement at Power Back-Off
    This article presents the analysis and design of a three-stage load modulated power amplifier (PA), in which three amplifiers, each with different biasing, are connected to a four-port coupler. It is illustrated that, by properly configuring current relationships between the three amplifiers, this new load modulated PA can provide flexible output power back-off (OBO) and achieve high efficiency within a large OBO range. A detailed theoretical analysis and design methodology are given. In this architecture, the OBO level can be adjusted by simply setting bias conditions of the relevant amplifiers that correspond to the current relationships. Therefore, after circuit fabrication, the OBO range can still be reconfigured without redesigning the circuit. To validate the proposed approach, a prototype operating at 3.45 GHz is demonstrated and implemented with gallium nitride (GaN) transistors. The measured saturated output power reaches 45 dBm with 70.1% drain efficiency. At 6-/8-/10-dB OBO, the fabricated PA can provide up to 62.1%/53.8%/47.3% drain efficiency, respectively. When driven by a 60-MHz 9-dB peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) long-term evolution (LTE) signal, the PA provides 34-dBm average output power with 44.3% average efficiency. Moreover, measurement results prove that the PA can offer efficiency enhancement when the OBO is reconfigured to 8 or 12 dB after fabrication.
    Scopus© Citations 13  488
  • Publication
    Broadband RF-Input Continuous-Mode Load-Modulated Balanced Power Amplifier With Input Phase Adjustment
    This article presents the theory and design methodology of broadband RF-input continuous-mode load-modulated balanced power amplifier (CM-LMBA) by introducing the CM output-matching networks in the LMBA architecture. It is illustrated that the CM impedance condition can be achieved by properly adjusting the phase difference between the different PA branches in the proposed CM-LMBA during the entire load modulation process. An RF-input CM-LMBA with 1.45-2.45-GHz bandwidth using commercial GaN transistors is designed and implemented to validate the proposed architecture. The fabricated CM-LMBA attains a measured 11.2-13.4-dB gain and around 40-W saturated power. Power-added efficiency (PAE) of 46.4%-56.5% and 43.2%-50.3% is achieved at 6- and 8-dB output power back-offs throughout the designed band. When driven by a 100-MHz OFDM signal with an 8-dB peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR), the proposed CM-LMBA achieves better than -46-dBc adjacent channel leakage ratio (ACLR) and higher than 45% average PAE after digital predistortion at 1.8 and 2.1 GHz.
    Scopus© Citations 49  670
  • Publication
    Ultra-Wideband Dual-Mode Doherty Power Amplifier Using Reciprocal Gate Bias for 5G Applications
    (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2019-08-14) ; ; ;
    A novel architecture to extend the bandwidth of the Doherty power amplifier (DPA) is presented in this article. It is illustrated that two DPA modes at different frequency bands can be realized by simply swapping the gate biases of the transistors without changing the matching circuits, and hence, ultrawide bandwidth can be achieved by using a single load modulation network in DPA. A dual-mode DPA with 2.8-4.1-GHz bandwidth for Mode I and 2.2-2.7-GHz/4.2-4.8-GHz bandwidth for Mode II using commercial GaN transistors is designed and implemented to validate the proposed architecture. The fabricated DPA attains a measured 7.5-11.7-dB gain and 39.2-41-dBm saturated power. 35.0%-49.7% drain efficiency is obtained at 6-dB output power back-off for the designed dual-mode bands. When driven by a ten-carrier 200-MHz OFDM signal with 7.7-dB peak-to-average power ratio, the proposed DPA achieves adjacent channel leakage ratio of better than -50 dBc after digital predistortion at 2.5 GHz/3.5 GHz/4.5 GHz with an average efficiency of 46.0%/35.7%/33.0%. This simple configuration provides a promising solution for 5G, where multiple frequency bands in sub-6 GHz will be deployed.
    Scopus© Citations 39  813
  • Publication
    Bandwidth Enhancement of Doherty Power Amplifier Using Modified Load Modulation Network
    A novel Doherty power amplifier (DPA) architecture with extended bandwidth is presented in this paper. A modified load modulation network is introduced to provide impedance condition required by the Doherty operation in a wide frequency range. Analytical parameter solutions of the proposed load modulation network and the related load modulation process are presented. A DPA with 2.80-3.55 GHz bandwidth utilizing commercial GaN transistors is implemented. The fabricated DPA attains a measured 9.3-11.1 gain and 43.0-45.0 dBm saturated power. 50.0-60.6% and 66-78% drain efficiency is obtained at 6 dB output power back-off and saturation throughout the designed band, respectively. Moreover, the back-off drain efficiencies are higher than 55% within 700 MHz bandwidth. When driven by a 6-carrier 120 MHz OFDM signal with 7.0 dB peak to average power ratio, the proposed DPA achieves adjacent channel leakage ratio of better than -50 dBc after digital pre-distortion (DPD) at 3.20 GHz with average efficiency of 53.3%.
    Scopus© Citations 47  586
  • Publication
    Dual-Band Three-Way Doherty Power Amplifier Employing Dual-Mode Gate Bias and Load Compensation Network
    This article presents a new method to design dual-band three-way Doherty power amplifiers (DPAs). A novel modified load modulation network (LMN) is constructed for enabling dual-mode Doherty operation with three-way configuration, providing enhanced high efficiency range in both modes. Moreover, a parallel load compensation network (LCN) is employed in the proposed three-way DPA to provide wideband performance in each operation band. A three-way dual-mode DPA using commercial gallium nitride high electron mobility transistors (GaN HEMTs) is then designed and manufactured to verify the proposed architecture. Frequency bands of 1.45-1.9 GHz in Mode I and 0.75-1.0 GHz in Mode II are achieved by the DPA, respectively. The fabricated DPA has a 9-dB output back-off (OBO) efficiency of 42.8%-57.7% and a saturated efficiency of 55.4%-70.1%. When driven by a 20-MHz long term evolution (LTE) modulated signal with 8-dB peak-to-average ratio (PAPR), the adjacent channel power ratio (ACPR) of the fabricated DPA is better than -49.9 dBc after digital predistortion at 0.9 and 1.7 GHz with average efficiency of 45.7% and 54.6%.
    Scopus© Citations 5  459