A novel highly efficient broadband continuous class-F RFPA delivering 74% average efficiency for an octave bandwidth

Abstract

A novel, highly efficient and broadband RF power amplifier (PA) operating in “continuous class-F” mode has been realized for first time. The introduction and experimental verification of this new PA mode demonstrates that it is possible to maintain expected output performance, both in terms of efficiency and power, over a very wide bandwidth. Using recently established continuous class-F theory, an output matching network was designed to terminate the first three harmonic impedances. This resulted in a PA delivering an average drain efficiency of 74% and average output power of 10.5 W for an octave bandwidth between 0.55 GHz and 1.1 GHz. A commercially available 10 W GaN HEMT transistor has been used for the PA design and realization.