Design and Implementation of as Asymmetric Doherty Power Amplifier at 2.65 GHz in GaN HEMT Technology

Abstract: Power amplifiers are an indispensible part of the wireless communication systems. Conventional PAs provide peak efficiency at peak output power which is obtained at a certain fixed optimum resistance. These kind of amplifiers are normally called switched-mode power amplifiers (SMPAs) and are used for constant envelope signals. However, there is low efficiency at low output power which is the linear operation of a PA and is used for the amplification of non-constant envelope signals. For an optimum PA design, linearity and efficiency are the requirements. There are efficiency  enhancement techniques and Doherty architecture is one such approach. Classical Doherty (symmetric) approach entertains the signals that have peak to average power ratio (PAPR) of 6 dB. Applications like Long Term Evolution (LTE) having high PAPR of nearly 9 dB demand efficiency throughout the back-off range. Therefore the challenge is to design and implement an asymmetric Doherty power amplifier that ensures high efficiency in the back-off range greater than 6 dB. This work presents the design and implementation of an Asymmetric Doherty Power Amplifier (ADPA) for 12 dB back-off at 2.65 GHz in Gallium Nitride (GaN) High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMTs) technology. The carrier and peaking amplifiers are biased in class-B and C mode of operations, respectively. A branchline coupler is used to divide the input signal equally to amplifiers input. A 10 W GaN HEMT transistor is used as an active device for both amplifiers. The design has been implemented with ideal transmission lines and then shifted to microstrip lines using 508 um substrate. The measurement results of the ADPA prototype, when drain of carrier and peaking devices are biased at 24 V and 28 V  respectively, showed an input power back of (IPBO) of 9.68 dB with almost same power added efficiency (PAE) of 44% throughout the entire back-off range. The simulations are done with Agilent ADS and Momentum is used for Electromagnetic (EM) simulation.