Title :
A high gain SiGe-GaN switching power amplifier in the GHz-range
Author :
Heck, S. ; Bräckle, A. ; Berroth, M. ; Maroldt, S. ; Quay, R.
Author_Institution :
Inst. of Electr. & Opt., Univ. of Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany
Abstract :
This paper reports a GaN switching power amplifier with a complementary SiGe driver stage in a hybrid setup. The gain of the overall amplifier module is higher than 40 dB. Drain efficiency and an overall lineup efficiency of 60 % and 47 % respectively could be achieved at a bit rate of 1 Gbps when operating with a periodic drive signal. An operation up to 4 Gbps using a pseudo random pulse sequence is demonstrated. To the author´s knowledge, this is the first time a GaN switching amplifier with a SiGe driver is demonstrated. Furthermore, such a high gain combined with the efficiencies at bit rates above 1 Gbps has not been presented yet.
Keywords :
Ge-Si alloys; III-V semiconductors; driver circuits; gallium compounds; microwave power amplifiers; wide band gap semiconductors; SiGe-GaN; amplifier module; bit rate 1 Gbit/s; complementary driver stage; drain efficiency; high-gain switching power amplifier; lineup efficiency; periodic drive signal; pseudo random pulse sequence; Bit rate; Gallium nitride; Logic gates; Modulation; Power amplifiers; Silicon germanium; Transistors; class-S; digital transmitter; gallium nitride; power amplifier; pulse-width modulation; silicon germanium; switching amplifier;
Conference_Titel :
Wireless and Microwave Technology Conference (WAMICON), 2012 IEEE 13th Annual
Conference_Location :
Cocoa Beach, FL
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4673-0129-9
Electronic_ISBN :
978-1-4673-0128-2
DOI :
10.1109/WAMICON.2012.6208469
