26th Iranian Conference on Electrical Engineering (ICEE2018)

L-Band Power Amplifier Design with Discrete

GaN Transistor
Mina Amiri Yasin Alekajbaf Nasser Mssoumi
PhD Student PhD Student Full Professor
CST-LAB, School of ECE CST-LAB, School of ECE CST-LAB, School of ECE
College of Eng., College of Eng., College of Eng.,
University of Tehran University of Tehran University of Tehran
Tehran, Iran Tehran, Iran Tehran, Iran
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Abstract— In this paper, design and fabrication of a L band Microwave power transistors in GaN technology
solid-state high power amplifier is reported. GaN Transistor represent heat-hardiness and high power density. This
is the main active high power element in this amplifier specification made these transistors more attractive for
design. ADS simulation is used to design and optimize the high power amplifier applications. Morever, Since GaN
input and output matching of the transistor. With these
HEMT device exhibits high breakdown voltage, GaN PA
optimized matching networks, more than 100 watt output
power is obtained. For the GaN transistor, bias sequencing is a good andidate for future wireless communications
circuits in the gate and drain terminals are controlled by a standards and millimeter wave applications [5, 6].
digital board. Furthermore, a control loop using software is Therefore an NXP transistor based on this technology is
utilized to achieve a better operation in the fabricated employed in this work. Design and simulation results of
system. the high power amplifier are presented in section II and
the measurement results for the fabricated final power
Keywords- Power amplifier; power added efficiency; GaN amplifier system are presented in section III.
technology; Gain; Output power.
II. High POWER AMPLIFIER DESIGN AND
SIMULATION
I. INTRODUCTION
A. Block diagram
In recent years, solid-state power amplifiers have been
A three stages amplifier is designed for our needed
used for many radio frequency systems, such as
output power as shown in Fig.2. For the first stage, an
communication systems and radar systems. According to
amplifier with 0.5 watt output power is used. The second
the development different standard in communication
amplifier is an amplifier (TriQuint product) with an
systems, replacing multiple amplifiers by a single
output power near to 10 watt. Also, the elected main
broadband power amplifier to cover a certain frequency
output stage amplifier is a GaN transistor fabricated by
range reduces cost and system complexity. Also, future
NXP. As the power gain of this main output component,
phased array radar systems, (see fig. 1), require more
NXP transistor, is 11 dB, it needs about 10 watt in the
efficient power amplifier systems.
input for providing the output power of 100 watt. This
By using GaN-based active devices, the output power
required 10 watt power could be generated by the series
and efficiency of such power amplifiers could be
connection of the two mentioned power amplifiers in
dramatically increased in comparision to other
stage 1 and 2.
technologies [1-4].

Driver Amplifier Mid Power Amplifier High Power Amplifier

DPA HPA
MAAM-009286 TGA2237 CLF01G0035-100
Phase Shifter Pout > 28dBm Pout > 40dBm Pout > 50dBm

Antenna Fig. 2. Bblock diagram of the 3 stage power amplifier.

Attenuator

As it is mentioned before, GaN technology is used for

LNA Limiter
two output stage of TriQuint and NXP product, while
input stage of MACOM is a GaAs MMIC which exhibits
Fig. 1. Typical block diagram of a phased array T/R Module.
exceptional linearity and high gain.
A bias module is required for the GaN devices to
apply sequential voltage to drain and gate of the power

311
978-1-5386-4916-9/18/$31.00 ©2018 IEEE
Authorized licensed use limited to: Amrita School of Engineering. Downloaded on July 31,2024 at 09:43:04 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 26th Iranian Conference on Electrical Engineering (ICEE2018)

transistors.
In our utilized bias module, A N-channel MOSFET
transistor is used for switching the drain in the bias
module. The N-channel MOSFET transistor represent
better current development in comparision to P-channel
MOSFET device. However with the N-channel MOSFET
as switch, we need a charge pump for driving the gate of
N-channel MOSFET which a common hot-swap
controller IC is used for this reason. For better protection
of the GaN devices, we insert a sensor in the drain
terminal of the transistor. The utilized sensor will cut off
the current of transistor in any currents above the
permissible current of the transistor.
(a)

B. Simulation result
In the overall block diagram of Fig.2, Internally
matched power amplifier is used for the 2 seris amplifiers
in the input of the high power system. But the main high
power amplifier is a unmatched transistor that it needs
matching networks for input and output port to reach a
better performance. By properly utilizing transmission
lines, capacitors and an open circuit stub in the input of
the circuit, a wideband matching in 1-2 GHZ is achieved
for this transistor. Proper value for components in
matching networks is reached by load pull and source pull
simulations in ADS software. (b)
The designed matched broadband amplifier circuit is
shown in Fig.3. As it is shown in this figure, just one Fig. 4. Small signal performance of high power amplifier a) S-
inductor in drain terminal is used as a RF chock in this parameters b) Stability Factor.
matching circuit.
A connection of two coaxial cables is used in the Well-matched NXP transistoer in series with two
output matching circuit. This connection of two cables driver and midieum amplifier create the required high
has a role of doubling the impedance in order to approach power amplifier. Harmonic balance simulation is used to
the 50 ohm matched impedance. estimate the large signal performance of the proposed
high power amplifier. An input power of 40dBm (10
Vg
C5
Coax1 watt) was injected to the input and the amplifier was
L6 L7
Coax2
Outpu
t
biased in class AB operation. As it can be seen in Fig. 5,
R1

Inpu L1 L3 L4 L5
C4
this power amplifier has demonstrated output power
t L1 C6
C1 and power added efficiency (PAE) performance better
C2 C3
than 48 dB and 33% respectively at the operating
L2

frequency band. A variation of 1.5 dB in output power is

achieved in 1-2 GHz frequency range.
Fig. 3. Input and Output matching circuit.

The EM simulator capability of Advanced Design

System (ADS) platform was used to predict and optimize
the small signal and large signal performance of the
amplifier.
Small signal simulation results with NXP GaN
transistor model are shown in Fig. 4.
As shown in Fig. 4 (a), the gain of the matched high
power transistor is approximately 15 dB with flatness of 1
dB. Morever, output return loss of better than 8 dB is
achieved in 1.2-1.7 GHz. According to Fig.4 (b), the
power amplifier is well unconditionally stable across the
operating frequency as it is needed to design a stable
power amplifier. As mentioned befor, this matched (a)
transistor is used as a main block of the the proposed high
power amplifier.

Authorized licensed use limited to: Amrita School of Engineering. Downloaded on July 31,2024 at 09:43:04 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply. 312
 26th Iranian Conference on Electrical Engineering (ICEE2018)

achieve a fixed output power with minimum variation in

output.
The measurement setup was calibrated at the probe
tips. Fig. 7 shows the measured output power of the
fabricated high power amplifier system. The ripple in this
figure is because of the existing faults in our
measurement system.

(b)
Fig. 5. large signal performance of high power amplifier, a) output power
b) Power Added Eficiency (PAE).

III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

The RF board of fabricated high power amplifier is
implemented on two different boards of Rogers4003 and
Taconic. Taconic board is used for better performance in Fig. 7. Measured output Power.
high output power, and for the last block in amplifer
design (NXP transistor) and two other blocks of driver IV. CONCLUSION
and midieum power amplifier are implemented on Rogers
substrate. Bias module circuit is implemented on a To achieve a high power output of 100 watt, a
different board of FR4 and is mounted on the above combination of 3 stage amplifier is recommended. A GaN
surface of the RF board. transistor of NXP is selected for the main high power
stage. Two other series stages of 0.5 watt MACOM and
One challenge in this system is the high power
10 watt TriQuint amplifier are used for driving the main
consumption that leads to high temperature and high heat
generation. Simulation in ANSYS simulator showed that output high power stage. Advance Design System (ADS)
using heat sink and a Fan with air flow of 65cfm could platform is used to design and optimizate the appropriate
amend the temperature conditions. Fig. 6 shows the input and output matching network for NXP transistor.
fabricated high power amplifier. These networks are designed to reach the desired power
of 100 watt in the output and have a good matching in
Drivers are implemented on 8 mil Rogers 4003 to input for better connection to matched 10 watt TriQuint
transfer the heat easily from this narrow board to bottom power amplifier. Two separate boards of Rogers and
floor. In addition, output stage of power amplifier system Taconic is used to implement the proposed amplifier
is implemented on 30mil Taconic substrate for its good circuits. Output power is measured in the output port of
power transfer.
fabricated system and ensures the existence of 100 watt
power output.

REFERENCES
[1] N. S. Cheng, P. Jia, D.B. Renesch and R. A. York, “A 120-W X-
Band Combined Solid-State Amplifier,” IEEE trans. Microw.
Theory Techn., vol. 47, No. 12, pp. 2557-25621, December 1999.
[2] J. Jeong, Y. Kwon, S. Lee, C. Cheon and E. A. Sovero,” IEEE
Fig. 6. Fabricated high power amplifier. trans. Microw. Theory Techn., vol. 48, No. 12, pp. 2700-2708,
December 2000.
[3] R. Jia, L. Y. Chen, A. Alexanian, and R. A. York, “Broad Band
In the implemented system, a low power and a high High Power Amplifier using Using Spatial Power Combining
power coupler is used respectively in input and output of Technique,” IEEE trans. Microw. Theory Techn., vol. 51, No. 12,
system. By utilizing these couplers in our system, we pp. 2469-2476, December 2003.
could report the input power, output power and returned [4] Y. Kobayashi, M. Hori, H. Noji, G. Fukuda, and S. Kawasaki,
“Broad Band High Power Amplifier using Using Spatial Power
power to system on a LCD monitor. In addition, a 6 bit Combining Technique,” Microwave Workshop Series on
digital attenuator is utilized in input stage of the Innovative Wireless Power Transmission: Technologies, Systems,
amplifier system that could be controlled for a fixed and Application (IMWS), pp. 271-274, May 2012.
output power. A loop control with software is proposed to [5] B. Liu, M. Mao, C. C. Boon, P. Choi, D. Khanna, and E. A.
align the input power and also the digital attenuator to Fitzgerald, “A Fully Integrated Class-J GaN MMIC Power
Amplifier for 5-GHz WLAN 802.11 ax Application,” IEEE
Microw. Wireless Compon. Lett., Mrch 2018.

Authorized licensed use limited to: Amrita School of Engineering. Downloaded on July 31,2024 at 09:43:04 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply. 313
 26th Iranian Conference on Electrical Engineering (ICEE2018)

[6] R. Welker, S. Ozev, and J. Kitchen, “Incorporating RF test

measurements for efficient design flow of GaN-based power
amplifiers,” RF/Microwave Power Amplifiers for Radio and
Wireless Applications (PAWR), 2018 IEEE Topical Conference
on, pp. 69-71, Jan. 2018.
[7] K. Song, Y. Fan, and X. Zhou, “Investigation of broadband power
amplifier with high power-combinig efficiency,” IEEE trans.
Microw. Optical Techn. Lett., vol. 50, No. 8, pp. 2178-2181,
Agust 2008.
[8] K. Song, F. Zhang, S. Hu, and Y. Fan, “Ku-band Pulsed Power
Amplifier Based on Waveguid Spatially Power-Combining
Technique for Industrial Application,” IEEE trans. Industrial.
Electrionics, vol. 61, no. 8, pp. 4274-4280, Agust 2014.

Authorized licensed use limited to: Amrita School of Engineering. Downloaded on July 31,2024 at 09:43:04 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply. 314