High-linearity two-watt power amplifier for multiband wireless applications

Author

Faiz, Mir M. ; Earles, Susan K. ; Bin Hou ; Shuyun Zhang

Author_Institution

ECE Dept., Florida Inst. of Technol., Melbourne, FL, USA

fYear

2013

fDate

4-7 April 2013

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

3

Abstract

Amplifiers in the final stages of wireless transmitters boost the power level of the up-converted signals, but the ultimate power level is not same for all transmitters. One specific amplifier can be used as a driver in a cellular base station or as last stage in applications like a pico-cell. However, the amplifier has to meet the stringent linearity requirement imposed by these different standards. In this paper, we present a highly linear single stage two watt power amplifier in GaAs HBT process. The amplifier can be externally matched at the input and output, thus provides flexibility to optimize it across a specific frequency band of interest between 400 MHz and 2700 MHz. The design includes a novel approach of utilizing the nonlinear base-collector and base-emitter diode capacitances of a transistor biased in the saturation region to improve the linearity of the amplifier. The transistor provides a nonlinear feedback path between the output and input of the amplifier and thus minimizes the third order intermodulation distortion (IM3) component.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; bipolar integrated circuits; cellular radio; gallium arsenide; integrated circuit design; intermodulation distortion; power amplifiers; radio transmitters; GaAs; HBT process; amplifier linearity; base-emitter diode capacitances; cellular base station; frequency 400 MHz to 2700 MHz; high-linearity power amplifier; multiband wireless applications; nonlinear base-collector; nonlinear feedback path; pico-cell; power 2 W; power level; saturation region; stringent linearity requirement; third order intermodulation distortion component; up-converted signals; wireless transmitters; Gain; Gallium arsenide; Heterojunction bipolar transistors; Linearity; Power amplifiers; Power generation; Radio frequency; GaAs HBT; linearity; nonlinear feedback; power amplifier;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Southeastcon, 2013 Proceedings of IEEE

Conference_Location

Jacksonville, FL

ISSN

1091-0050

Print_ISBN

978-1-4799-0052-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/SECON.2013.6567376

Filename

6567376