A 2.14 GHz 50 Watt 60% Power Added Efficiency GaN Current Mode Class D Power Amplifier

This paper presents a 50 W current mode class D (CMCD) power amplifier (PA) operating at 2.14 GHz. The PA is implemented using GaN pHEMT. The peak drain efficiency (iquest) is 62.7% and power added efficiency (PAE) is 60.3%. A resonator without an inductor was implemented to eliminate any loss that results from the low quality factors. The resonator uses narrow microstrip DC-feed lines located close to the drain leads which is used as resonator inductance. A model of the output capacitance (i.e.; Cds) was extracted from the die model and is used as a part of the resonator. Finally, a comparison between an ideal parallel LC with the proposed resonator was simulated to achieve the required impedance termination.

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