Analysis of E ffi ciency-Limiting Factors Resulting from Transistor Current Source on Class-F and Inverse Class-F Power Amplifiers

SUMMARY This paper describes the e ffi ciency-limiting factors result- ing from transistor current source in the case of class-F and inverse class-F (F − 1 ) operations under saturated region. We investigated the influence of knee voltage and gate-voltage clipping behaviors on drain e ffi ciency as lim- iting factors for the current source. Numerical analysis using a simplified transistor model was carried out. As a result, we have demonstrated that the limiting factor for class-F − 1 operation is the gate-diode conduction rather than knee voltage. On the other hand, class-F PA is restricted by the knee voltage e ff ects. Furthermore, nonlinear measurements carried out on a GaN HEMT validate our analytical results.

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