Efficient and wideband two-stage 100 W GaN-HEMT power amplifier

In this paper, the design, implementation, and experimental results of a high power, high efficiency, and wideband two-stage GaN-HEMT power amplifier (PA) are presented. The design is performed using source-pull/load-pull simulations together with a systematic approach to design wideband input, output, and interstage matching networks. Large-signal measurements show that, 50-52 dBm output power, 24-26 dB power gain, and 55-65% Power-Added-Efficiency (PAE) are maintained across 2.0-2.7 GHz. Moreover, linearized modulated measurements using an RF PA Linearizer (RFPAL) have been performed. Using a 10MHz long-term evolution (LTE) signal with 7.5 dB peak-to-average ratio (PAR), an adjacent channel leakage ratio (ACLR) of -46 dBc is achieved, with an average output power of 25 W and an average PAE of 27%.