2022 14th International Conference on Communication Software and Networks

Ultra Wideband High Performace Power Amplifier

for Communication
Wenge Xing Shichang Zhong Dan Huang Wenqi Yang
School of Information Science & School of Information Science & Microwave Power Devices Microwave Power Devices
2022 14th International Conference on Communication Software and Networks (ICCSN) | 978-1-6654-5328-8/22/$31.00 ©2022 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ICCSN55126.2022.9817580

Engineering Engineering Department Department

Southeast University Southeast University Nanjing Electronic Devices Nanjing Electronic Devices
Nanjing, China Nanjing, China Institute Institute
whesly5287@163.com sinoboy@163.com Nanjing, China Nanjing, China
hd891212@163.com 1752181193@qq.com

Shutong Zhou Yuchao Li

Compound semiconductor Microwave Power Devices
Department Department
Nanjing Electronic Devices Nanjing Electronic Devices
Institute Institute
Nanjing, China Nanjing, China
stzhou@mail.sitp.ac.cn teenagerliyc@126.com

Abstract—Based on the 0.25μm GaN HEMT process platform
of Nanjing Electronic Devices Institute, an ultra wideband
continuous wave power amplifier with more than one octave band
is designed and realized by using a 12mm gate width HEMT and
the design method of multi-stage impedance change in the input
and output matching circuit. The bias drain bias of the amplifier
is 32V and the static current is 1A. In the 2.7-6.2GHz frequency
band, the continuous wave output power of the amplifier is greater
than 45W, the power gain is greater than 9dB, the power flatness
is less than 1.6dB, and the power added efficiency is greater than
38%, realizing excellent microwave performance.
Keywords—GaN, HEMT, ultra wideband, continuous, amplifier,
power added efficiency
Based on the 0.25um GaN HEMT platform of Nanjing
Electronic Devices Institute, this paper uses a single 12mm gate
width GaN FET and the principle of multistage impedance
change to design the broadband circuit of the input-output
matching circuit. In order to reduce the synthesis loss, the whole
amplifier does not carry out cell matching, and finally develops
an ultra wideband power amplifier covering the S-C band. The
bias of the amplifier is set to the drain voltage of 32V and the
static current of 1A. In the 2.7-6.2GHz frequency band, the
continuous wave output power of the amplifier is greater than
45W, the gain is greater than 9dB, the power flatness is less than
1.6dB, and the power added efficiency is greater than 38%.
Excellent microwave performance is realized.

I. INTRODUCTION II. STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES OF GAN DEVICES

Broadband microwave power amplifier has always been the The material longitudinal section structure of the developed
core component of communication system, navigation system SiC substrate GaN heterojunction device is shown in Fig. 1
and radar system. The ultra wideband (UWB) microwave power below. The whole material structure consists of undoped semi
amplifier has become the research hotspot and focus of various insulating SiC substrate, undoped GaN buffer layer, AlN
research institutions for decades because it can improve the insertion layer that can increase electron mobility, AlGaN
downlink bandwidth and uplink capacity in the system, and has barrier layer and GaN cap layer.
a series of advantages of low system complexity and strong
penetration ability. GaN HEMT is a high electron mobility FET
based on AlGaN/GaN heterostructure. It has the advantages of
high breakdown voltage, fast electron mobility and high
matching impedance. It is a natural ideal device for designing
and manufacturing broadband high-power amplifier. At present,
many studies have reported the relevant results [1]-[6]. However,
due to the design difficulty of high-power UWB 2-6GHz band
and many parasitic parameters matched by discrete devices, it is
very difficult to realize. For a long time, it has only been
designed and realized by MMIC, which is difficult to increase
the power due to the size of the chip. Moreover, the matching Fig. 1. Schematic view of the AlGaN/GaN HEMT structure.
loss of single-chip circuit is large, and the efficiency has been
difficult to achieve [7]-[9]. The gate width of the device is 4×100μm, and the tested DC
pulse width is 200ns. From the V-I curve in Fig. 2, it can be

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obtained that the saturated drain current of the process at 1mm
gate width is 1A at 0V, and its pinch off voltage is -2.5V. The
breakdown voltage of its source and drain sections is tested.
Under the test condition of 1mA / mm, its breakdown voltage is
greater than 150V and more than 4 times of 32V, which ensures
that the amplifier can work under the condition of 32V
continuous wave.
Fig. 2. Pulsed I-V curve of a 4100μm GaN HEMT. The pulse width is 200
ns.
Figure 3 is the maximum available gain curve of 4 ×100μm
gate width PCM graph from 1G to 14GHz using this process. Its
test conditions are Vds = 32V and Idsq = 15mA. It can be seen
from the curve that the process platform with 0.25μm gate length
has sufficient gain margin in S / C frequency band to ensure
broadband circuit design. Figure 4 shows its load pull result.
Fig. 3. Maximum available gain curve of 4 ×100um gate FET.
Fig. 4. Load pull result of 4 ×100μm gate width FET.
III. MATCHING CIRCUIT DESIGN
According to the discussion of the above process PCM
graphic parameters, the balance is made between the optimal
power point and the optimal efficiency point, and finally the
optimal load impedance Zopt = 42-j * 57 with 1mm gate width
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is selected as its design target value. Figure 5 below is the front
photo of the finally selected 12mm grid width FET. Its whole
chip size is 1 4.2mm. As shown in Figure 6, according to the
optimal load impedance, its 12mm RC parallel equivalent circuit
value can be obtained, in which the resistance R is about 10
ohms and the capacitance C is about 5.4pF.
Fig. 5. Front photo of 12mm AlGaN/GaN HEMT.
Fig. 6. RC parallel equivalent circuit of 12mm AlGaN/GaN HEMT.
The design of broadband matching circuit needs to solve the
contradiction between the wider matching band under the
minimum reflection coefficient or how to reduce the number of
matching network nodes under a given bandwidth index. Bode-
Fano criterion gives the theoretical limit value of the modulus of
the minimum reflection coefficient that can be obtained for an
arbitrary matching network under a certain standard load
impedance type. Therefore, for the lossless network with
parallel RC load impedance, the formula can be given
∞
1 𝜋
∫ ln dω ≤
0 |Γ(𝜔)| 𝜏
There τ= RC, the value of RC can be equal to the equivalent
circuit value of output load impedance. In order to obtain the
maximum bandwidth, Figure 7 shows the circuit topology of the
designed broadband amplifier. The output uses L1 inductor to
absorb the imaginary part of the impedance, and then uses three-
stage L-C impedance lifting network to raise the output
impedance to 50 ohms; The input adopts four-stage L-C
impedance lifting network to raise the input impedance of the
circuit to 50 ohms, and R1C8 series network is used at the root of
the tube core to realize the stability of the circuit and grid feeding.
Fig. 7. Circuit topology of the designed broadband amplifier.
 Fig. 8 is a schematic diagram of the matching of the output The final matching circuit and FET are assembled in 27.4 
load impedance on the circular diagram. Figure 9 shows the 30.8mm CMC ceramic package, as shown in Figure 11.
matching trend of output load impedance on Smith circle
diagram. Figure 10 shows the loss curve of output matching
circuit simulated by the lowest matching loss method. After the
schematic simulation, the inductance and capacitance elements
are realized by distributed ceramic microstrip lines and designed
on a circuit layout, which can reduce the assembly error caused
by micro assembly and achieve better design accuracy, The
ceramic used in the input-output matching circuit here is
alumina with a thickness of 380μm.

Fig. 11. Photograph of GaN internally matched amplifier.

The GaN FET, input matching circuit and output matching

circuit adopt the AuSn eutectic welding process at 280 ℃ and
heat sink sintering together. The sintering quality is very
important here, because the efficiency of UWB amplifier is
often not high, and too high heat consumption will lead to the
increase of device channel junction temperature and the decline
Fig. 8. Schematic diagram of output load impedance matching on circular of amplifier reliability.
diagram.
IV. RF PERFORMANCE
The test system of high-power broadband amplifier includes
signal generator, power meter, driving amplifier, gate power
supply and drain power supply, as shown in Figure 12.

Fig. 9. Graph of the matching trend of the output load impedance on the Smith
circle diagram.

0.0

-0.5 Fig. 12. Instruments in the test system.

dB(S(2,1))

-1.0
Figure 13 shows the power and efficiency test curve of the
developed S-C UWB power amplifier. It can be seen from the
curve that under the test conditions Vgs = - 2.0V, Vds = 32V,
-1.5 Pin = 37dBm and continuous wave test conditions, the output
power of the amplifier is greater than 46.5dBm (45W), up to
-2.0
48.1dBm (65W) in the range of 2.7-6.2GHz, power gain is over
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 9dB and the additional efficiency is greater than 38% in the band
freq, GHz and up to 54.5%. It has achieved excellent circuit performance
in the UWB range.
Fig. 10. Loss curve of output matching circuit simulated by the lowest matching
loss method.

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 continuous wave output power in the whole frequency band is
greater than 45W, the power gain is more than 9dB, the
additional power efficiency in the frequency range is more than
38%, and the maximum efficiency is 54.5%. The realization of
power amplifier shows that the internal matched power
transistor designed by this method can obtain good performance
and has good application prospects in solid-state microwave
amplifier, especially suitable for broadband wireless
communication applications.
REFERENCES
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Amplifier Design Using Large Signal Mode ,” Chinese Institute of
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V. CONCLUSIONS
[8] K. Motoi, K. Matsunaga, S. Yamanouchi, K. Kunihiro, M. Fukaishi, “A
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The bandwidth of the finally realized internal matching
amplifier covers the 2.7-6.2GHz frequency band, and the

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