Development of 3 kW at 325 MHz solid-state RF power amplifier using four power amplifier modules

A high power solid-state RF power amplifier of 3 kW at 325 MHz has been developed using only four RF power amplifier modules of 850 W power output each. The design and characterization of RF power modules have been presented. A four way Wilkinson power combiner adds the output of four power amplifier modules with a total transmission loss of less than 6%. The combined power amplifier has a power gain of 20.2 dB at 1-dB compression point, and the corresponding output power is 2.8 kW at 325 MHz. The drain efficiency of the power amplifier is 65.3% at 3 kW. All the harmonics of this amplifier are below −40 dBc. The amplifier has better characteristics like fewer numbers of active devices per kilo watt, high efficiency, high gain, and ruggedness etc for RF accelerator applications.