Experimental Analysis of In-package Harmonic Manipulations with a 160 W GaN HEMT Power Bar

In this study, contributions of the proper harmonic terminations at the input and output of large power bars to efficiency of the packaged high power RF devices are presented. The designed networks have low-pass filter characteristic including specific terminations for 2nd harmonics and are implemented into ceramic packages. The power bars consist of 16 mm total gate width GaN HEMTs of 0.45 μm process technology. The measured results show that proper terminations of the harmonics at the input and output provide 18 % DE improvement. 80.5 % peak drain efficiency and 52 dBm peak output power were achieved at 2.9 GHz. Drain efficiency was higher than 76 % in 2.7-3.1 GHz band.