Tuneable Analog Phase Correction for Drain-Modulated Power Amplifiers
Journal article, 2025
This article investigates an analog phase correction method for a K-band 4-W drain-modulated power amplifier (PA) in 150-nm GaN-on-SiC technology. A tuneable phase modulator monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) is integrated directly in the PA RF input path to counteract the output phase shift of the PA under supply modulation and reduce output phase distortion. The phase modulator does not require an additional control signal as it directly takes the supply-modulated drain voltage of the PA as its control input and has negligible power consumption with an insertion loss below 3.4dB. Modulated measurements with a 33.75-MHz 16-QAM RF input signal with 6-dB peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) at 20.5 GHz show a power-added efficiency (PAE) improvement of 6.5-9.5 percentage points (pp) for a variety of tracking functions. Moreover, with the phase modulator enabled, the PA output phase variation is reduced from 30 degrees to 14 degrees. Simultaneously, with phase compensation, the adjacent channel power ratio (ACPR) is improved by up to 5.2 dB to a value of -40.2 dB, while the rms error vector magnitude (EVM) is improved by up to 4.4 pp to a value of 6.9%, showing better linearity compared to a static 20-V bias case, while the average PAE is significantly improved.
Microwave amplifiers
phase shifter
Microwave circuits
Voltage measurement
Phase modulation
nonlinear distortion
phase modulation
Voltage control
Efficiency
supply modulation
Linearity
Varactors
predistortion
power amplifiers (PAs)
Radio frequency
Gain
Power generation
monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs)
Author
Rob Theodoor Wilhelm Anton Vissers
Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Microwave Electronics
Christian Fager
Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Microwave Electronics
Maxwell Robert Duffy
Northrop Grumman corporation
Zoya Popovic
University of Colorado
Gregor Lasser
Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Microwave Electronics
IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques
0018-9480 (ISSN) 15579670 (eISSN)
Vol. In PressEfficient mmW Backhaul for enhanced wideband Connectivity
Vinnova, Formas, Energimyndigheten, 2022-07-01 -- 2024-06-30.
VINNOVA (2022-00861), 2022-07-01 -- 2024-06-30.
Subject Categories (SSIF 2025)
Other Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering
Telecommunications
DOI
10.1109/TMTT.2025.3621018