Improving the Graceful-Degradation Performance of Combined Power Amplifiers

The standard method of employing n-way hybrid power divider/combiner to combine n amplifiers offers some sort of graceful-degradation performance when one or more of the amplifiers fail. Two schemes are discussed that improve that performance significantly. The first, which was proposed previously, involves replacing each failed amplifier by an equal-delay "through" connection. The second involves using a resistor-free combiner, and seperating each failed amplifier from the combiner by an appropriately placed short or open circuit.