Title :
GaN SSPA for UHF space applications
Author :
Katz, Al ; Eggleston, Brian ; Macdonald, James
Author_Institution :
Coll. of New Jersey, Ewing, NJ, USA
Abstract :
UHF Solid State Power Amplifiers (SSPAs) for use in government and commercial communications satellites have been developed. These SSPAs combine high-voltage gallium nitride (GaN) FET technology with predistortion linearization (PDL) to allow the achievement of both linearity and record high efficiency. A peak power of more than 170 W with a power added efficiency (PAE) of 90% has been achieved. The SSPAs can be operated at lower power for multi-carrier WCDMA operation. A PAE of > 80% was achieved with a WCDMA adjacent channel level ratio (ACLR) of -25 dB.
Keywords :
III-V semiconductors; UHF power amplifiers; code division multiple access; field effect transistors; gallium compounds; linearisation techniques; satellite communication; wavelength division multiplexing; wide band gap semiconductors; ACLR; GaN; PAE; PDL; SSPA; UHF solid state power amplifiers; UHF space applications; adjacent channel level ratio; commercial communications satellites; government communications satellites; high-voltage gallium nitride FET; multicarrier WCDMA operation; power added efficiency; predistortion linearization; technology; Gallium arsenide; Gallium nitride; Linearity; Multiaccess communication; Power amplifiers; Satellites; Spread spectrum communication; GaN; UHF; WCDMA; high efficiency; linearizer; power amplifiers; satellite;
Conference_Titel :
Microwave Symposium Digest (IMS), 2013 IEEE MTT-S International
Conference_Location :
Seattle, WA
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4673-6177-4
DOI :
10.1109/MWSYM.2013.6697695