A 0.8-to-18 GHz Nonuniform Distributed PA Using Reconfigurable Bias Choke in 0.15 <i>μ</i>m GaAs pHEMT

Abstract

This letter proposes a reconfigurable bias choke topology power amplifier (PA) that achieves high power-added efficiency (PAE) and multioctave bandwidth in nonuniform distributed PA (NDPA) designs. The proposed reconfigurable bias choke achieves extended bandwidth, optimized matching networks, and improved PAE. The proposed 0.8–18 GHz frequency reconfigurable NDPA (FRNDPA) is configured for two subbands, 0.8–4.5 GHz and 4.5–18 GHz. The chip is fabricated using a 0.15- <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> GaAs pHEMT process. Measured results show that for the 0.8–4.5 GHz band, the PA achieves an input return loss (IRL) better than −12 dB, a 20.5–21.3 dBm saturated output power, and an average PAE of 28%. For the 4.5–18 GHz band, the PA achieves better than −12 dB, 20.2–21.6 dBm, and 27% for IRL, saturated output power, and average PAE, respectively.