Reliability and efficiency aspects of harmonic-control amplifiers

Author

Ingruber, Bernhard

Author_Institution

Inst. fur Elektrische Mess- & Schaltungstech., Tech. Univ. Wien, Austria

Volume

9

Issue

11

fYear

1999

fDate

11/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

464

Lastpage

466

Abstract

Reverse gate current flowing through a power device of a harmonic control microwave amplifier reduces its power-added efficiency (PAE) and its reliability. This study reports on theoretical analysis and measurement results of the breakdown behavior of a GaAs MESFET at class F and half sinusoidally driven harmonic control amplifier (hHCA) operation. In a class F amplifier reverse gate current is observed in power saturation and PAE decreases with increasing drain supply voltage. On the other hand, in an hHCA any reverse gate stress is avoided due to the reduction of input voltage swing. This improves not only PAE, but also reliability

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; MESFET circuits; circuit reliability; gallium arsenide; harmonics; microwave field effect transistors; microwave power amplifiers; microwave power transistors; power MESFET; semiconductor device breakdown; semiconductor device reliability; GaAs; GaAs MESFET; PAE improvement; breakdown behavior; class-F amplifier; drain supply voltage; efficiency aspects; half sinusoidally driven operation; harmonic-control amplifiers; input voltage swing reduction; microwave amplifier; power saturation; power-added efficiency; reliability aspects; reverse gate current; Electric breakdown; Gallium arsenide; Harmonic analysis; MESFETs; Microwave amplifiers; Microwave devices; Operational amplifiers; Power amplifiers; Power system harmonics; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Microwave and Guided Wave Letters, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1051-8207

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/75.808037

Filename

808037