A 10-W6-12GHz GaN MMIC Supply Modulated Power Amplifier
Paper in proceeding, 2022

This paper presents a gallium nitride (GaN) Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) PA with octave bandwidth, designed specifically for amplifying high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) signals with high efficiency from 6 to 12 GHz. Across the octave bandwidth, greater than 23.0% PAE is achievable over 10-dB of back off power using a dynamic supply voltage range from 6 to 20 V. We present the design and CW characterization of the PA as well as measurements using a 10-MHz multi-carrier noise-like signal and a 4-level discrete supply modulator comparing four different tracking functions. At 6.5 GHz a flat-gain, uniform voltage spacing function yields a 2.5 dB improvement in noise power ratio (NPR) over the static 20 V results with 3.8% points of PAE improvement, reaching 35.0 dBm of average output power. Furthermore, for a target NPR of 20 dB supply modulation yields a 9.7,% point improvement in PAE over the static case with a 1.5 dB increased output power.

octave bandwidth

GaN

MMIC

supply modulation

Power amplifier

Author

Connor Nogales

University of Colorado at Boulder

Zoya Popovic

University of Colorado at Boulder

Gregor Lasser

Chalmers, Microtechnology and Nanoscience (MC2), Microwave Electronics

University of Colorado at Boulder

2022 52nd European Microwave Conference, EuMC 2022

436-439
9782874870699 (ISBN)

52nd European Microwave Conference, EuMC 2022
Milan, Italy,

Subject Categories

Telecommunications

Signal Processing

Other Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering

DOI

10.23919/EuMC54642.2022.9924466

More information

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1/3/2024 9