A 30 watt high efficient high power RF pulse power amplifier

In this article, simulation and implementation of a 30 watt high efficient class-AB RF pulse power amplifier using GaN transistor in 1.2-1.4 GHz is presented. Class-AB RF amplifier is widely used in wireless communication industry due to acceptable compromise between linearity and efficiency. Load pull utility provided in Agilent Design System software is employed to obtain the optimum load impedance while the input of the transistor is matched with S₁₁ conjugate to attain an acceptable power gain. Afterwards, microstrip tapered lines are employed for the design of input and the output matching networks to provide required band width. The power amplifier exhibits (45-44.8) dBm output power at 1 dB gain compression point (P1dB), 17 dB minimum signal gain and above 63.6% power added efficiency throughout the band. The measurement results show that the amplifier is very suitable for use in the driver stage of a very high power amplifier due to its high gain flatness.