Wideband two-stage 50W GaN-HEMT power amplifier

In this paper, a high power, high efficiency and wideband two-stage GaN-HEMT power amplifier (PA) is presented and illustrated together with the design, implementation, and measured results. The scope of the design was to build broadband input-, interstage-, and output-matching networks based on source-/load-pull simulations and a systematic approach. The large-signal measurements indicate that the achieved output power is higher than 50W, the power gain locates in the range of 27-28 dB, and the Power-Added-Efficiency (PAE) reaches 45-55% over a frequency range of 2-2.8 GHz. Moreover, linearized modulated measurements were also performed by applying a 5MHz Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) signal with 9 dB peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR). The resulted adjacent channel leakage ratio (ACLR) at 2.2 GHz was achieved at -38 dBc, with an average output power of 5W and an average PAE of 18 %.