Large-signal characterization of horizontal current bipolar transistor (HCBT) by load-pull measurements

Load-pull and source-pull characterization of packaged Horizontal Current Bipolar Transistor (HCBT) is performed at 2.4 GHz. A fully-calibrated, automated load-pull measurement setup is used to determine the optimal matching conditions at both input and output of the transistor, considering maximum output power and efficiency. Three classes of power amplifier (PA) operation are investigated, namely Class A, Class AB and Class B. Matching impedances and bias points for all classes of operation are optimized by employing the load-pull and source-pull contours for output power and collector efficiency. With the output power of more than 22 dBm and gain of 11 dB, HCBT shows a great potential for RF power amplifier design for modern wireless communication standards, such as Wi-Fi and 4G LTE.