A. Wentzel , C. Meliani, W. Heinrich

Published in:

European Microwave Conf. (EuMC 2010), Paris, France, Sep. 28-30, pp. 640-643 (2010).

Abstract:

This paper reports on a novel voltage-mode class-S power amplifier for the 450 MHz band, based on GaN-HEMT MMICs. It achieves a peak output power of 3.4 W for a single tone at 400 MHz, encoded in standard band-pass delta-sigma modulation with 1.6 Gbps sampling frequency. The corresponding efficiency is 38%, peaking at 52% for 0.5 W output power. In order to demonstrate the influence of coding efficiency, additional measurements using a periodic squarewave signal were performed (class-D operation), which yield a maximum output power of 6.5 W with 64% efficiency. To the authors knowledge, these are the best results in this frequency range achieved so far with the voltage-mode class-S configuration.

Keywords:

power amplifier, class-S, voltage-mode, GaN, HEMT, switch-mode, band-pass delta-sigma modulation.

Copyright © EuMA 2010. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the EuMA.

Full version in pdf-format.