A saturated PA with high efficiency [Technical Committee]

The IEEE MTT-5 student design competition for high-efficiency PAs provides the opportunity for the student to do an in-depth study of a PA from theoretical concept and analysis to fabrication and testing. This competition motivates many students to have a strong interest in a highly efficient PA design and development. The contest rules require the PA to operate at a frequency greater than 1 GHz but less than 20 GHz and produce an output power of greater than 5 W but less than 100 W into a 50 Ω load with a power input of less than 25 dBm. Aparticipant demonstrates the PA at the International Microwave Symposium (IMS), and the designer of the PA with the highest power-added efficiency (PAE) becomes the winning entry of the contest. The PAs designed by previous winners showed PAE with >75% at about 1 GHz frequency range [1]¿[3]. In the 2008 contest, a new rule, which has a frequency weighting factor of the PAE multiplied by (GHz)^0.25, was introduced to encourage PA design at higher frequencies.