A 1.8–2.3 GHz broadband Doherty power amplifier with a minimized impedance transformation ratio

In this paper, the design and measurement results of a 1.8 GHz to 2.3 GHz broadband Doherty power amplifier (DPA) are reported. A modified load modulation network is designed to minimize impedance transformation ratio over the entire dynamic range for the purpose of extending the operating bandwidth. Experimental results show that the drain efficiency of the proposed DPA maintains above 50% and 63% with continuous wave input signal powers of 26 dBm and 34 dBm, respectively, from 1.8 GHz to 2.3 GHz. When stimulated by a 60-MHz, 12-carrier UMTS signal at 2.14 GHz, the proposed DPA achieved an average efficiency of 53% at 7.6 dB back-off, while the corresponding adjacent channel leakage ratio is linearized to -48.4 dBc with digital predistortion.