Design of highly efficient filtering power amplifier with a wideband response for sub-6 GHz 5G applications

Abstract

This paper presents the design of a filtering power amplifier (PA) with extra-high power-efficiency and wide bandwidth. To accomplish this, a novel approach is adopted by utilizing a wideband bandpass filter (BPF) as the output matching network (OMN) for the PA. The BPF compromises two paths, where each path consisting of two identical coupled lines that are interconnected to form a ring structure. The suggested configuration eliminates the need for a conventional OMN by integrating the input port of the filter with the drain node of the transistor, resulting in reduced size and losses and improved amplifier performance. The filter concept is illustrated using coupling matrix synthesis. A proof-of-concept filtering PA has been designed using a commercially available 10 W GaN HEMT. This amplifier was designed to operate in the frequency range of 3.0–5.0 GHz, yielding a fractional bandwidth of 50 %. According to achieved results, the drain efficiency and output power are 43.8–70.5 % and 40.2–41.8 dBm, respectively. As a result, the suggested filtering PA demonstrates significant performance in terms of filter bandwidth response and power amplification. Additionally, the proposed filtering PA has a broad operational bandwidth of 3.0–5.0 GHz, which covers the 5G New Radio (NR) n77 (3.3–4.2 GHz), n78 (3.3–3.8 GHz), and n79 (4.4–5.0 GHz) frequency bands.

Keywords

• Filtering power amplifier
• Wideband
• High efficiency
• GaN
• Output matching network
• Dual-path coupled lines