Fast second harmonic injection characterization for efficiency enhancement of RF power amplifiers

Author

Haedong Jang ; Roblin, Patrick ; Zarate-de Landa, A. ; Apolinar Reynoso-Hernandez, J.

Author_Institution

Electr. & Comput. Eng., Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH, USA

fYear

2013

fDate

18-21 Nov. 2013

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

4

Abstract

A fast characterization method to determine the optimal second harmonic injection required at the input for enhancing the efficiency of RF power amplifiers is demonstrated. The second harmonic is injected with a small frequency offset to automatically sweep the phase during one modulation cycle. The power amplifier performance figures of merit are characterized over the second-harmonic amplitude and phase space. Time varying voltage and current waveforms are measured using a large signal network analyzer for a 15 W peak power packaged GaN device. The constructive second-harmonic injection exhibited improvements in efficiency of 11.7% and 30.5% compared, respectively, to the cases of (1) no injection with 50Ω termination and (2) destructive second-harmonic injection.

Keywords

III-V semiconductors; gallium compounds; network analysers; radiofrequency power amplifiers; wide band gap semiconductors; GaN; GaN device; RF power amplifiers; efficiency enhancement; fast characterization method; fast second harmonic injection characterization; modulation cycle; optimal second harmonic injection; phase space; power 15 W; resistance 50 ohm; second harmonic amplitude; signal network analyzer; time varying current waveforms; time varying voltage waveforms; Current measurement; Harmonic analysis; Microwave circuits; Microwave measurement; Radio frequency; Voltage measurement; efficiency harmonic injection; large signal network analyzer; load-pull; poly-harmonic distortion (PHD) model; power amplifier; waveform engineering;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microwave Measurement Conference, 2013 82nd ARFTG

Conference_Location

Columbus, OH

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ARFTG-2.2013.6737342

Filename

6737342