Design of a Broadband Doherty Power Amplifier Based on Hybrid Continuous Mode

Hybrid continuous mode can be utilized to design highly efficient broadband power amplifiers (PAs). In this paper, a broadband Doherty PA (DPA) with enhanced back-off efficiency is realized by using the hybrid continuous mode. Especially, the carrier PA operates under hybrid continuous mode at low-power regions, enhancing the bandwidth and back-off efficiency of the DPAs. For validating the proposed theory, a broadband DPA working over 1.5-2.6 GHz is implemented. The experimental results show that the designed DPA achieves a saturation power of 43.7-45 dBm, a drain efficiency of 41.3%-55.1% at 6-dB output back-off power level, and a drain efficiency of 57%-74.6% at peaking power level.