Trading-off stability for efficiency in designing switching-mode GaN PAs for WiMAX applications

Author

Ebrahimi, Mohammad Mojtaba ; Helaoui, Mohamed ; Ghannouchi, Fadhel

Author_Institution

Comp. Eng. Dep., Univ. of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

fYear

2009

fDate

7-10 Dec. 2009

Firstpage

2348

Lastpage

2351

Abstract

This paper presents a 10 W, 2.4 GHz switching-mode power with a GaN HEMT transistor for WiMAX applications. By trading the stability for the efficiency, the overall power efficiency of the designed PA can be increased. It is shown in this paper that the parasitic effect introduced by the stability circuit affects the waveform shaping at large-signal drive level in switching mode PAs and consequently degrades its maximum peak efficiency. Hence, by using a potentially instable design, the efficiency and gain performance of a given transistor can be increased compared to an unconditionally stable design. To validate this approach an inverse class F PA was manufactured and tested. The power added efficiency and gain performance increased by 3.5% and 0.25 dB to reach 72% and 14.5 dB, respectively, when using a potentially instable design.

Keywords

WiMax; high electron mobility transistors; power amplifiers; GaN; HEMT transistor; WiMAX application; frequency 2.4 GHz; maximum peak efficiency; overall power efficiency increment; power 10 W; signal waveform shaping; stability circuit affect; switching-mode GaN PA; trading-off stability; Circuit stability; Degradation; Gallium nitride; OFDM modulation; Peak to average power ratio; Performance gain; Stability analysis; Switching circuits; Voltage; WiMAX; Switching-mode PA; WiMAX; efficiency; harmonic load pull; harmonic matching; stability;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microwave Conference, 2009. APMC 2009. Asia Pacific

Conference_Location

Singapore

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-2801-4

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-2802-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/APMC.2009.5385454

Filename

5385454