Modulated-Input Control and Linearization of a Multi-Port Millimeter-Wave PA by VNA-based Calibrated Wideband Measurements

An on-wafer multi-port measurement system based on a vector network analyzer (VNA) is exploited in order to perform the wideband characterization and linearization of a dual input Doherty power amplifier (PA) at millimeter-wave frequencies. By leveraging on the error-corrected wideband waves, an algorithm is proposed in order to realize modulated signal control across a 600-MHz bandwidth at the device-under-test (DUT) on-wafer plane, eventually allowing to impose a user-defined emulated splitting ratio on the dual input. The linearization performance of such an emulated PA configuration is finally evaluated.