Characterization of GaN Power Amplifier Using 5G mm-Wave Modulated Signals

In this paper, a characterization of a GaN power amplifier (PA) for 5G FR2 base station applications is presented. The PA has an output power greater than 40 dBm with a PAE of 33%. The characterization starts with the classic single tone measurements. Then, after selecting and justifying a backoff, a characterization with 256QAM 5G FR2 signals with 100 and 50 MHz bandwidth is performed. ACPR and EVM are measured in compliance with 5G FR2 standard. Finally, the AM/AM and AM/PM characteristics are analyzed to determine the most suitable linearization technique for a overall performance/consumption trade-off. This work is a preliminary study to develop a 5G FR2 massive MIMO transmitter.