An 80% power efficient, 125-Watt, GaN-based RF power amplifier designed for continuous duty and linear operation on L-band

This paper describes the design, simulation and implementation of a high power RF amplifier operating at 1315 MHz using a single, state-of-the-art GaN HEMT transistor. The design technique described is entirely based on computer modeling instead of measured load and source-pull impedances, resulting in 125 W of saturated CW output power at 80% efficiency and 100% duty cycle, while also meeting typical WCDMA signal spectral mask requirements without the aid of a linearizer at 5.6 dB output power back-off.