[W1F-1]
Reversible High Efficiency Amplifier/Rectifier Circuit
for Wireless Power Transmission System
Ryo Ishikawa #1 , and Kazuhiko Honjo #2
#
The University of Electro-Communications, 1-5-1 Chofugaoka, Chofu 182-8585, Japan
1
r.ishikawa@uec.ac.jp, 2 honjou@uec.ac.jp
Abstract—A reversible high-efficiency amplifier/rectifier circuit
using one transistor has been proposed. For the gate side of the
transistor, an input circuit for the amplifier and a gate adjusting
circuit for the rectifier are prepared. By switching the circuits, the
operation mode is changed. For the drain side of the transistor,
a harmonic treatment circuit can be shared by both operations.
The harmonic treatment induces high-efficiency operation not
only for the amplifier, but also for the rectifier. To verify both
operations, a GaAs pHEMT amplifier and a rectifier which
varied only the gate-side circuit were designed and fabricated
at 5.8 GHz. The fabricated amplifier exhibited a maximum drain
efficiency of 71%, and the fabricated rectifier exhibited an RF-
to-DC conversion efficiency of 68%.
Index Terms—Wireless power transmission, high efficiency,
rectifier, amplifier, harmonic treatment.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Wireless power transmission technologies, such as magnetic
coupling [1], resonance coupling [2], and microwave radia-
tion [3] for close-, mid-, and long-range power transmission,
respectively, have been widely developed. For resonance cou-
pling, megahertz signals are used, and for microwave radiation,
gigahertz signals are used. Both cases require a high-efficiency
conversion between DC and RF. A high-efficiency amplifier
is used for conversion from DC to RF, and a high-efficiency
rectifier is used for conversion from RF to DC. For these
applications, many kinds of high-efficiency amplifiers have
been proposed. In addition, many rectifiers based on a diode
rectifying circuit have also been proposed. These have gener-
ally been independently developed from each other, whereas
there is a common analogy regarding harmonic treatment
between amplifiers and rectifiers. An experimental result about
a rectifier operation using a HEMT was reported by Gómez [4],
where a harmonics treatment technique similar to a high-
efficiency amplifier design was used to the RF input circuit
connected to a HEMT drain node. Thus, it can be expected
that the same high-efficiency mode can be realized on the same
transistor for both the amplifier and rectifier.
In this paper, we propose a novel reversible high-efficiency
amplifier/rectifier circuit. Fig. 1 shows a circuit configuration
of the reversible amplifier/rectifier. Both the amplifier and
rectifier are realized by using one transistor. For the amplifier
operation, the circuit configuration is almost the same as that
in a typical high-efficiency amplifier. On the other hand, for
the rectifier operation, the RF input signal is applied from the
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2013 Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference Proceedings
Amplifier(DC to RF) DC in
Harmonics Matching
Rectifier(RF to DC) treatment for f0
circuit DC out
f0
RF out
2f0, f0
3f0, RF in
f0
•
••
Fig. 1. Circuit configuration of a reversible high-efficiency amplifier/rectifier
circuit using one transistor
output side of the amplifier configuration. In addition, the DC
output power leaves from the drain bias port. For the gate side
of the transistor, the input-matching circuit for the amplifier
is switched to the gate-adjusting circuit for the rectifier. For
the drain side of the transistor, a harmonic treatment circuit is
shared by both operations. Consequently, both operations can
be compactly constructed. To verify both the amplifier and
rectifier operations, an InGaAs/GaAs pHEMT amplifier and
rectifier which varied only the gate-side circuit were designed
and fabricated at 5.8 GHz.
II. D ESIGN AND FABRICATION OF A MPLIFIER /R ECTIFIER
A. Harmonic Reactive Termination Circuit
In order to obtain a high-efficiency characteristic, reactive
termination conditions are applied to the harmonics [5]. Re-
active termination conditions up to fourth-order harmonics
and an input-matching condition were experimentally designed
based on the MHz-band harmonics active load-pull tech-
nique [6] at the operation frequency of 5.8 GHz. The same type
of InGaAs/GaAs pHEMT described in [6] was used. Fig. 2 (a)
shows the fabricated amplifier and rectifier. An InGaAs/GaAs
0.25-μm pHEMT (WIN Semiconductors) with a gate width
of 100 μm×2 fingers was used. The input matching circuit
for the amplifier was experimentally adjusted from the typical
amplifier design. The design of the gate-adjusting circuit for
the rectifier is described in detail in the next subsection.
The same type of harmonic treatment circuit was used
for both the amplifier and the rectifier. The target load
impedance and measured impedance are shown on the left
side of Fig. 2 (b). An optimum harmonics load condition for an
intrinsic part of the HEMT is also shown. Since the HEMT has
parasitic elements, the optimum load condition at f0 = 5.8 GHz
978-1-4799-1472-2/13/$31.00 ©2013 IEEE
 2013 Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference Proceedings

Amplifier VG VD Rectifier VG DCout Cdg

ZL
Zg = Rg + jXg Zg υgs Cgs gm1υgs υds Cds

RFin RFout RFin

Fig. 3. Equivalent circuit of the rectifier at the fundamental frequency
HEMT HEMT TABLE I
C IRCUIT PARAMETERS AT 5.8 GH Z
The same type of harmonic treatment circuits Cgs = 175 fF Cdg = 26.8 fF gm1 = 19.7 mS
ε r: 3.7, tanδ : 0.002
Substrate: Megtron 6 (Panasonic) Thickness: 0.3 mm,
RL = 184 Ω XL = 38.9 Ω Rg = 6.28 Ω Xg = 91.4 Ω
(a)
4f0 17.4 GHz

( )
23.2 GHz (3f0) 5.8 GHz
(4f0) 17.4 GHz Amplifier 4.17+j116
(3f0) 11.6 GHz
Zg
5.8 GHz(f0) 23.2 GHz
(4f0) ( ) ( )
f0 5.8 GHz(f0)
3f0
( ) ( ) Zg
Target Measurement

11.6 GHz 11.6 GHz Rectifier

2f0 (2f0)
( : for an intrinsic part of the HEMT)
(b)
Fig. 2. (a) Fabricated InGaAs/GaAs pHEMT amplifier and rectifier designed
at 5.8 GHz. (b) Target optimum load condition considering up to fourth-order
harmonic frequency (left), and the measured one (right)
for the harmonic treatment circuit is shifted, as shown on
the left side of Fig. 2 (b). Microstrip transmission lines on a
resin substrate, described in Fig. 2 (a), were used to realize the
target optimum load condition for the harmonics. The reactive
terminations for the harmonics were realized by using quarter-
wavelength open-ended stubs. The measured load condition up
to second-order harmonics shown on the right side of Fig. 2 (b)
was similar to the target values. For that of third- and fourth-
order harmonics, there were some deviations due to loss and
frequency dispersion.
B. Gate-Adjusting Circuit for Transistor Rectifier
For the rectifier operation, the HEMT has to be driven by
inputting a signal synchronized with the RF input signal to
the gate. In the gate-adjusting circuit, the synchronized signal
is provided via the feedback capacitor, Cdg , and its amplitude
and phase are adjusted. The equivalent circuit of the rectifier at
the fundamental frequency is shown in Fig. 3. The impedance
of the gate termination circuit, Zg , at f0 is derived as follows:
j
Zg = . (1)
ω [Cgs + Cdg (1 + gm1 ZL )]
The impedance for the gate circuit is determined by using
the ZL that is the target f0 impedance, shown on the left side
of Fig. 2 (b), for the intrinsic part of the HEMT. The parameters
estimated from a measured S-parameter of the HEMT and
calculated by using (1) are listed in Table I. A gate-adjusting
circuit to realize the calculated Zg was constructed with
transmission lines and chip capacitors (Murata GQM, GRM
(2f0)
Fig. 4. Circuit configuration of the gate adjusting circuit and its measured
impedance
series), as shown in Fig. 4. The measured Zg is also shown in
Fig. 4. For f0 , similar values were obtained between calculated
and measured values. The Zg for 2f0 was also experimentally
adjusted to obtain a high-efficiency characteristic.
As shown in Fig. 4, the input-matching circuit for the
amplifier operation, and the gate-adjusting circuit for the rec-
tifier operation, can be constructed by adjusting the capacitor
values and the capacitor positions on the transmission line.
If electrical switches are inserted, as shown in Fig. 4, the
operation mode can be electrically changed.
III. A MPLIFIER /R ECTIFIER P ERFORMANCES AT 5.8 GH Z
The measured input-output power responses and efficiency
characteristics for the fabricated amplifier are shown in Fig. 5.
The frequency dependence characteristics of the maximum
efficiency characteristics are also shown. A maximum drain ef-
ficiency (ηD ) of 71% and a maximum power-added efficiency
(PAE) of 66% were obtained at 5.8 GHz.
The measured results for the fabricated rectifier are shown
in Fig. 6. For RF-to-DC conversion efficiency estimation, the
equation shown in Fig. 6 was used. The influence of the power
consumption on the gate biasing, PDCgata , is extremely small,
since the gate bias current is several microamperes.
The measured RF-DC efficiency and output DC volt-
age characteristics for the fabricated rectifier are shown in
Fig. 6 (a). A maximum RF-DC efficiency of 67% was obtained
at 5.8 GHz when the gate bias voltage and DC load resistance
were set to −1.14 V and 230 Ω, respectively. In addition, the
DC output voltage at the maximum efficiency was measured
as 1.12 V. The DC voltage was relatively small in comparison
with the drain bias voltage to the amplifier. The DC current di-
rections for the amplifier and rectifier operations are opposite.

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 2013 Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference Proceedings

20 PDCgate
RF-DC efficiency =
Output power (dBm), Gain (dB) Gain Pout PDC
15 100 Pin × 100 (%)
Pref DUT PDC Pin + PDCgate – Pref

PAE, Drain efficiency,ηD (%)

10 80
ηD 80 2

5 60

DC output voltage (V)

RF-DC efficiency (%)
PAE 60 1.5

0 40
40 1
-5 f0 = 5.8 GHz, 20
VD = 3.2 V,
VG = -0.9 V 20 0.5
f0 = 5.8 GHz,
-10 0
RL = 230 Ω,
-20 -15 -10 -5 0 5 10
VG = -1.14 V
Input power (dBm) 0 0
-30 -20 -10 0 10 20
(a)
Input power (dBm)
PAE, Drain efficiency,ηD (%)

75
(a)
ηDMAX 80
70

PAEMAX

RF-DC efficiency (%)

65 60 0

60

Pref / Pin (dB)

VD = 3.2 V, 40 -10
VG = -0.9 V
55
5.65 5.7 5.75 5.8 5.85 5.9 20 -20
Frequency (GHz) f0 = 5.8 GHz,
VG = -1.14 V,
(b) P in =9.1 dBm
0 -30
Fig. 5. (a) Measured input-output power response and efficiency character- 0 100 200 300 400 500
istics for the fabricated amplifier. (b) Frequency dependence characteristics of
the maximum efficiency characteristics DC load resistance, RL (Ω)
(b)
Fig. 6. (a) Measured RF-DC efficiency and output DC voltage characteristics
In this case, when the HEMT is the ‘on’ state, the directions for the fabricated rectifier. (b) Measured RF-DC efficiency and ratio of
reflected RF power to RF input power as a function of DC load resistance
of the instantaneous drain current and drain-source voltage,
which is nearly zero, are also opposite in the HEMT. It seems
that these differences affected the voltage reduction. added efficiency of 66%. In addition, the fabricated rectifier
The measured RF-DC efficiency and the ratio of reflected exhibited an RF-to-DC conversion efficiency of 68%.
RF power to RF input power as a function of DC load resis-
tance are shown in Fig. 6 (b). A maximum RF-DC efficiency of ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
68% was obtained at 294 Ω. However, the RF reflection ratio
This work is partly supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant
was minimized at 188 Ω and was less than −23 dB. Similar
Number 25420323.
high-efficiency values were obtained for both the amplifier and
rectifier.
R EFERENCES
[1] N. Tesla, “Apparatus for transmitting electrical energy,” US Patent 1 119
IV. C ONCLUSION 732, Dec. 1, 1914.
[2] A Kurs, A. Karalis, R. Moffatt, J. D. Joannopoulos, P. Fisher, and
A reversible high-efficiency amplifier/rectifier circuit using M. Soljačić, “Wireless power transfer via strongly coupled magnetic
one transistor was proposed. By switching the input-matching resonances,” Science Magazine, vol. 317, no. 5834, pp. 83–86, Jul. 2007.
circuit for the amplifier operation and the gate-adjusting circuit [3] W. C. Brown et al., “Microwave to DC converter,” U.S. Patent 3 434 678,
Mar. 25, 1969.
for the rectifier operation, both operations are realized on the [4] C. Gómez, J. A. Garcı́a, A. Mediavilla, and A. Tazón, “A high efficiency
proposed circuit. A common harmonic treatment circuit is rectenna element using E-pHEMT technology,” in Proc. 12th GaAs Symp.,
used for both operations. To verify both operations, a GaAs Amsterdam, Netherlands, Oct. 2004, pp. 315–318.
[5] M. Kamiyama, R. Ishikawa, and K. Honjo, “5.65 GHz high-efficiency
pHEMT amplifier and a rectifier which varied only the gate- GaN HEMT power amplifier with harmonics treatment up to fourth
side circuit were designed and fabricated at 5.8 GHz. The same order,” IEEE Microw. Wireless Compon. Lett., vol. 22, no. 6, pp. 315–317,
reactive terminations for harmonics up to the fourth order were Jun. 2012.
[6] R. Ishikawa, Y. Takayama, and K. Honjo, “Experimental design method
applied to obtain a high-efficiency characteristic for both the for GHz-band high-efficiency power amplifiers based on MHz-band active
amplifier and rectifier. The fabricated amplifier exhibited a harmonics load-pull technique,” in Proc. 2012 Asia Pacific Microw. Conf.,
maximum drain efficiency of 71% and a maximum power- Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Dec. 2012, pp. 478–480.

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