A 2-W GaN-based Three-level Class-D Power Amplifier with Tunable Back-off Efficiency
T. Soma1, S. Hori1, A. Wentzel2, W. Heinrich2, and K. Kunihiro1
Published in:
IEEE MTT-S Int. Microw. Symp. Dig., Honolulu, USA, Jun. 4-9, pp. 2033-2036 (2017).
Abstract:
This paper presents a voltage-mode three-level class-D gallium nitride (GaN) power amplifier (PA) for the 700-MHz band. The PA achieves a drain efficiency of 68.7%, at a maximum output power of 2.1 W and a drain efficiency of 71.6% at 9-dB power back-off. The optimum power back-off is easily changed from 3 to 12 dB by tuning the supply voltage to the IC without degrading the peak efficiency. The PA consists of a single monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) without a power combiner. This is, to our best knowledge, the simplest architecture offering high back-off efficiency.
1 NEC Corporation, Kawasaki, Kanagawa, 211-8666, Japan
2 Ferdinand-Braun-Institut, 12489 Berlin, Germany
Index Terms:
class-D, GaN, MMIC, power amplifier.
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