Second octave power amplifier design 1.

0j

based on resistive-reactive series of 2.0j 0.5j

continuous inverse modes d=0 Y2f

d = 0.14
d = 0.5 a=1
Qinghua Tang, Yanghua Li and Wenguang Li✉ 5.0j 0.2j 1st
a = 1.16

a=1
This Letter presents a methodology, which contains resistive-reactive Y3f 2nd a = 1.16
5.0 2.0 1.0 0.5 0.2
series of continuous inverse modes (Res.-Rea. SCIMs), for the 3rd 1≤ a ≤1.16
second octave power amplifier (PA) design. The bandwidth was Y1f
d=0
extended by multiplying the current waveform of SCIMs with a –5.0j
d = 0.14
–0.2j
cosine factor. The measurement of the proposed Res.-Rea. SCIMs d = 0.5
PA showed 67–78.8% drain efficiency and ∼10 W output power
across a band of 0.5–2 GHz. –2.0j –0.5j

–1.0j

Introduction: The development of wireless communication system

motivates the improvement of power amplifier (PA) performance. Fig. 1 Design space of Res.-Rea. SCIMs with varied a and d
High efficiency, broadband and good linearity are inevitable trends for
PA in wireless communication system. More efforts have been paid
0
by researchers in recent years on the bandwidth and efficiency enhance- 80 82.20 –3 0
ment of harmonic-controlled PAs [1–6]. 70 73.98
–6 –2.360
65.76
–4.720
Continuous-mode theory was proposed to solve the bandwidth limit- 60

outpur power, dBm

57.54 –9
50 –7.080
49.32
ation of traditional switch mode PA [1]. It provides high efficiency in –12

DE, %
–9.440
40 41.10
–15 –11.80
wide bandwidth by properly introducing impedance control of the 30 32.88
–18 –14.16
20 24.66
–16.52
second-order harmonic and the third one. Chen et al. [2] discovered 10 16.44 –21
–18.88
6
8.220 1.1
the series of continuous modes (SCMs) between continuous class-B/J 1.160 0 0 2
–21.24
2 1.1 –23.60
mode and continuous class-F. Series of continuous inverse modes 1.1 0.
2

0
8
8 1.0

0.2
1.0 a

0.
(SCIMs) were proposed later [3, 4]. Furthermore, resistive-reactive

0.4
a .04

0.
4 1

0.6
d

6
1.0 d

0.

0.8
series of continuous modes (Res.-Rea. SCMs) PA [5] and

8
0 0

1.0
1.0

resistive-reactive series of continuous inverse class F modes
(Res.-Rea. SCIFMs) [6] were proposed with bandwidth over one
octave by introducing resistive second harmonic impedance.
In this Letter, Res.-Rea. SCIMs are proposed. The design space is
further extended by introducing resistive second harmonic admittance
in series continuous inverse modes. Mathematical derivation and
physical verification are carried on in the following parts.
Resistive-reactive series of continuous inverse modes: Traditional
SCIMs PA proposed in [3] shows a quarter waveform of drain voltage
and a half-sine waveform of drain current as
√


vds SCIMs (u) = 1 + 2 cos u + 0.5 cos 2u (1)
ids SCIMs (u) = (1 − a cos u + b cos 3u) × (1 − g sin u),
(2)
−1 ≤ g ≤ 1
1.
0
a b
Fig. 2 Variation of DE and degradation of output power with respect to a
and d
a Variation of DE
b Degradation of output power
For a certain value of d, the variation of a extends the design space of
fundamental impedance. Practical broadband continuous inverse mode
PA actually operates with series of continuous inverse modes relevant
to the proportion of fundamental component in drain current waveform.
Drain efficiency gets higher as a increases, which means the highest
efficiency achieves in inverse class-F mode when a = 1.16. It is
important for Res.-Rea. SCIMs PA to design the input matching
network with properly controlled second harmonic impedance because
the drain current waveform is a function of the gate voltage.

The design space which can be extended by multiplication of current
waveform of SCIMs by the factorial factor 1 + d cos u as follows:
ids (u) = ids SCIMs (u) × (1 + d cos u)
= (1 − a cos u + b cos 3u) × (1 − g sin u) × (1 + d cos u),
−1 ≤ g ≤ 1
Alternative impedance solutions with resistive second harmonic
impedance can thus be achieved. The extended design space of series
of continuous inverse modes is called as resistive-reactive series of
Simulation and measurement: Based on the above analysis, transistor
Cree CGH40010F was utilised to verify the preceding theory. An
output matching network has been constructed as depicted in Fig. 3 to
achieve the targeted impedances. The substrate used in this design is
(3)
the RF35 with dielectric parameter of 3.5, conductor thickness of
35 μm and substrate thickness of 0.76 mm.
1.4/8
1.5/33
Cbypass

continuous inverse modes. The required fundamental and harmonic current plane package plane
0.55 nH 0.1 nH 0.1 nH 1.4/8 3/1 2.5/21 9pF 1.7/5
impedances at current generation plane can be calculated using the
expression Yn = −ids,n /vds,n , thus: Cds
  
0.25 pF 0.25 pF 2/3

√

dg
Y1f = 2 (a − d) − j (a + b) − g Gopt (4)
4
Fig. 3 Schematic of output matching network
Y2f = −(d(b − a) + j(a + b − d)g)Gopt (5)
Fig. 4 shows the achieved impedance trajectories in Smith chart. The
Y3f = 1 (6) targeted design space at current generation plane is also depicted for
comparison. It can be seen that the achieved fundamental impedance
Fig. 1 illustrates the design space of Res.-Rea. SCIMs at current at current plane across operation band 0.5–2 GHz is in the fundamental
generation plane. The drain efficiency (DE) of the modified Res.-Rea. region shown in Fig. 1. While the slight dismatching of second and third
SCIMs can be calculated based on expressions (1) and (3) as impedances causes a little degradation in efficiency when the fundamen-
 √


ids,1f × Vds,1f dt 2(a − d) tal one is matched [7]. Drain efficiency can be further optimised by
DE =  = (7) properly introducing the control of the second harmonic impedances
ids,dc × Vds,dc dt 2 − ad
of input matching network.
The DE is a function proportional to the a while in inverse proportion of The photograph and sizes of the final PA are shown in Fig. 5. In
d. The variation of DE and degradation of output power with respect to experimentation, a drain bias of 28 V and a gate bias of −2.7 V were
a and d are shown in Fig. 2. Condition 0 ≤ d ≤ 0.5 should be ensured to chosen to achieve the quiescent current of 68 mA. The input power
achieve DE >65% when a = 1.16, while condition 0 ≤ d ≤ 0.14 was set as 28 dBm. The simulation and measurement results under
corresponding to a = 1. continuous wave excitation are depicted in Fig. 6. It shows that the

ELECTRONICS LETTERS 30th March 2017 Vol. 53 No. 7 pp. 510–512

fabricated Res.-Rea. SCIMs PA operated across band 0.5–2 GHz with Fig. 7 illustrates the third-order inter-modulation (IMD3) measure-
DE of 67–78.8% and output power of 39.1–41.9 dBm, respectively. ment results of the proposed PA at 3 dB output power back-off. From
Slight degradation in large-signal gain occurred at high-frequency side the test results, we can see that the proposed PA achieved a DE >50%
compared to the simulated results. and the upper IMD3 lower than −20 dBc over the entire operating fre-
quency band. Table 1 shows the comparisons of the proposed broadband
50j PA with previous designs.
25j 100j Z1 at current−plane

Z2,3 at current−plane
Table 1: Comparisons of the proposed PA with previous designs
Z1 at package−plane References Class BW (GHz/%) Pout (dBm) DE (%)
10j 250j
Z2,3 at package−plane
2 GHz
0.5 GHz [2] SCMs 1.6–2.7/51 40–42.5 70.3–81.9
0.5 GHz [3] SCIMs 2.4–3.9/47.6 39.6–41.4 62.2–74.7
2 GHz
10 25 50 100 250 [4] SCIMs 3.2–3.7/7.2 40.2–42 70–88
[5] Res.-Rea. SCMs 0.8–3.05/117 40–43.1 57.4–81.9
6 GHz
–10j Z1 at I−gen -250j This work Res.-Rea. SCIMs 0.5–2/120 39.1–41.9 67–78.8
4 GHz

Conclusion: Res.-Rea. SCIMs theory is proposed in this Letter. The

–25j –100j
design space has been further extended by introducing resistive
–50j second harmonic impedance into series of continuous inverse modes.
The consistency results between simulation and measurement proved
Fig. 4 Achieved impedances at current plane and package plane that the Res.-Rea. SCIMs PA shows good performance in broadband
application of the second octave.
8.2 W 28 V
–2.8 V
1.5/33 Cbypass Acknowledgments: This work was supported by ‘the Fundamental
Cbypass
1.5/23
1.4/8 3/1 2.5/21 9 pF 1.7/5 Research Funds for the Central Universities’, HUST under project no.
8.2 W 2016YXMS207 and the National Natural Science Foundation of
9 pF
1.7/5 2/13 4/3 10/2
2/3 China under grant no. 61001012.
CGH40010F
2/7.5 9 pF

© The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2017

Submitted: 6 January 2017 E-first: 7 March 2017
doi: 10.1049/el.2017.0044
One or more of the Figures in this Letter are available in colour online.
Qinghua Tang, Yanghua Li and Wenguang Li (School of Optical and
Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and
Technology, Wuhan 430074, People’s Republic of China)
✉ E-mail: hellolwg@mail.hust.edu.cn
Fig. 5 Photograph and sizes of proposed PA
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–20
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–22
45 –24
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–30
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Fig. 7 IMD3 measurement results at 3 dB output power back-off

ELECTRONICS LETTERS 30th March 2017 Vol. 53 No. 7 pp. 510–512