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A 10-W S-band class-B GaN amplifier with a dynamic gate bias circuit for linearity enhancement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2013

Pierre Medrel ,
Audrey Martin ,
Tibault Reveyrand ,
Guillaume Neveux ,
Denis Barataud ,
Philippe Bouysse ,
Jean-Michel Nébus ,
Luc Lapierre  and
Jean-François Villemazet
Pierre Medrel*
Affiliation:
XLIM – CNRS 123, Avenue Albert Thomas, 87060 Limoges Cedex, France. Phone: +33 0555 457 517
Audrey Martin
Affiliation:
XLIM – CNRS 123, Avenue Albert Thomas, 87060 Limoges Cedex, France. Phone: +33 0555 457 517
Tibault Reveyrand
Affiliation:
XLIM – CNRS 123, Avenue Albert Thomas, 87060 Limoges Cedex, France. Phone: +33 0555 457 517
Guillaume Neveux
Affiliation:
XLIM – CNRS 123, Avenue Albert Thomas, 87060 Limoges Cedex, France. Phone: +33 0555 457 517
Denis Barataud
Affiliation:
XLIM – CNRS 123, Avenue Albert Thomas, 87060 Limoges Cedex, France. Phone: +33 0555 457 517
Philippe Bouysse
Affiliation:
XLIM – CNRS 123, Avenue Albert Thomas, 87060 Limoges Cedex, France. Phone: +33 0555 457 517
Jean-Michel Nébus
Affiliation:
XLIM – CNRS 123, Avenue Albert Thomas, 87060 Limoges Cedex, France. Phone: +33 0555 457 517
Luc Lapierre
Affiliation:
Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), 31055 Toulouse, France
Jean-François Villemazet
Affiliation:
Thales Alenia Space (TAS), 31100 Toulouse, France
*
Corresponding author: P. Medrel Email: pierre.medrel@xlim.fr
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Abstract

In the present paper, we present a dynamic gate biasing technique applied to a 10 W, S-band GaN amplifier. The proposed methodology addresses class-B operation of power amplifiers that offers the potential for high efficiency but requires a careful attention to maintain good linearity performances at large output power back-off. This work proposes a solution to improve the linearity of class-B amplifiers driven by radio frequency-modulated signals having large peak to average power ratios. An important aspect of this work concerns the characterization of the dynamic behavior of GaN devices for gate bias trajectory optimization. For that purpose, the experimental study reported here is based on the use of a time-domain envelope setup. A specific gate bias circuit has been designed and connected to a 10 W – 2.5 GHz GaN amplifier demo board from CREE. Compared to conventional class-B operation with a fixed gate bias, a 10-dB improvement in terms of third-order intermodulation is reached. When applied to the amplification of 16-QAM signals the proposed technique demonstrates significant ACPR reduction of order of 6 dB along with error vector magnitude (EVM) improvements of five points over 8 dB output power back-off with a minor impact on power-added efficiency performances.

Keywords

Power amplifiers and linearizersMicrowave measurements
Type
Research Papers
Information
International Journal of Microwave and Wireless Technologies , Volume 6 , Issue 1: IJMWT Special Issue on the 2013 National Microwave Days in France , February 2014 , pp. 3 - 11
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and the European Microwave Association 2013 

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