Title :
A voltage-mode class-s power amplifier for the 450MHz band
Author :
Wentzel, Andreas ; Meliani, Chafik ; Heinrich, Wolfgang
Author_Institution :
Ferdinand-Braun-Inst. (FBH), Berlin, Germany
Abstract :
This paper reports on a novel voltage-mode class-S power amplifier for the 450 MHz band, based on GaN-HEMT MMICs. It achieves a peak output power of 3.4 W for a single tone at 400 MHz, encoded in standard band-pass delta-sigma modulation with 1.6 Gbps sampling frequency. The corresponding efficiency is 38%, peaking at 52% for 0.5 W output power. In order to demonstrate the influence of coding efficiency, additional measurements using a periodic square-wave signal were performed (class-D operation), which yield a maximum output power of 6.5 W with 64% efficiency. To the authors knowledge, these are the best results in this frequency range achieved so far with the voltage-mode class-S configuration.
Keywords :
III-V semiconductors; delta-sigma modulation; field effect MMIC; gallium compounds; high electron mobility transistors; power amplifiers; wide band gap semiconductors; GaN; GaN-HEMT MMIC; band-pass delta-sigma modulation; bit rate 1.6 Gbit/s; coding efficiency; frequency 400 MHz; frequency 450 MHz; periodic square-wave signal; power 0.5 W; power 3.4 W; power 6.5 W; voltage-mode Class-S power amplifier; Band pass filters; Gallium nitride; MMICs; Microwave amplifiers; Power amplifiers; Power generation; Switches; GaN; HEMT; band-pass delta-sigma modulation; class-S; power amplifier; switch-mode; voltage-mode;
Conference_Titel :
Microwave Conference (EuMC), 2010 European
Conference_Location :
Paris
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4244-7232-1