A 0.6–3.8 GHz GaN Power Amplifier Designed Through a Simple Strategy

Abstract

This letter presents the design strategy for an ultra-wideband, high-efficiency hybrid power amplifier based on a commercial GaN-HEMT. The measurement results demonstrate a state-of-the-art fractional bandwidth of 145.5%, with saturated output power higher than 10 W from 0.6 to 3.8 GHz and power added efficiency exceeding 46% in the whole band, thus covering most of the mobile frequencies and making this device suitable for small-base station applications. The simple design approach exploits a N-section transformer, and allows for a priori estimation of the bandwidth: in the proposed case, a good agreement between estimated and measured bandwidth is obtained.