A 16V 3.3-3.6GHz GaN Doherty Power Amplifier Module for Next-Generation Satellite Communication Applications

The design of a 16V 3.3-3.6GHz 4W gallium nitride (GaN) Doherty power amplifier (DPA) is presented in this paper. To achieve an optimal performance, knee voltage reduction and current density enhancement techniques are employed to improve the efficiency and bandwidth characteristics of the GaN process at 16V. Furthermore, the two-stage cascading performance is optimized through active bandwidth enhancement technique. A gain of 28dB, a saturation power of 4W, and an efficiency greater than 46% at an average power of 28.5dBm are achieved in the design.