An X-band GaN HEMT High-Efficiency Switchless Class-G Power Amplifier

This paper introduces an X-band switchless class-G (SLCG) power amplifier fabricated in 0.15-µm GaN HEMT technology. The switchless Class-G is adopted to improve the output back-off efficiency without additional bandwidth limitation. The measurement results in 8.2-9.2 GHz show that the PA achieves a maximum output power of 37.2 dBm and an average power-added efficiency of 22% at the 6-dB output back-off. The ACPR after digital pre-distortion is better than -48 dBc for a 20MHz long-term evolution (LTE) signal with a 7.5 dB PAPR.