Optimizing Power Losses and Efficiency of Broadband Parallel-Circuit Class-E Power Amplifier

Abstract

This paper presents a design method for a watt-level high-efficiency broadband power amplifier (BPA) with a generalized parallel-circuit (PC) Class-E model. A combination of the single-reactance compensation technique (S-RCT) and Chebyshev low-pass (LP) impedance matching network (MN) is used for achieving PA’s broadband characteristics. The analytical expression of the operation and power loss mechanisms of PC Class-E PA, which includes the effects of a finite DC-feed inductance, transistor on-resistance, and a broadband MN, is elaborated. As an example, a highly-efficient broadband PC (BPC) Class-E PA operating at 12 V drain supply voltage is implemented and verified experimentally. The designed PA exhibits high-efficiency characteristics of 82.15%-86.3% drain efficiency (DE) and 36.92-38.57 dBm output power ( $P_{out}$ ) with 19.95-23.11 dB power gain in the band from 7 MHz to 9.4 MHz. The measured results show good agreement with the theoretical and simulated results.

Keywords

• Class-E
• parallel-circuit
• power losses
• high-efficiency
• broadband matching
• power amplifier