A 2.5 W Class-F Power Amplifier using Balanced Stub Harmonics on 150 nm GaN HEMT device for 5G Applications

This letter proposes a novel MMIC Class-F power amplifier (PA) designed on 150 nm GaN process for 5G front end. Class-F amplification is achieved by controlling harmonics of output power through balanced stub arrangement thus switching current and voltage at output node. The designed amplifier provides linear gain greater than 15 dB, 2 W output power with 34.2% power added efficiency (PAE) for 26 GHz band of 5G operation. The circuit is designed for two stage amplification with Chebyshev low pass filter as output matching network (OMN) using L-type topology and balanced stub technique, for suppressing harmonics thus generating class-F amplifier. Additionally, a low-Q L-type input matching network and two stage L-type biasing network are used for reducing circuit complexity and for improving circuit performance. The designed amplifier is reducing complexity issues of class-F as well as providing better performance due to ability of nanoscale devices.