Investigation of Input Nonlinear Manipulated Broadband Hybrid Continuous Mode Power Amplifiers With a Novel Harmonic Control Network

ABSTRACT In this paper, the design theory of hybrid continuous mode (HCM) power amplifier (PA) with more general input nonlinear effect is deeply studied. By analyzing the change of asymmetric conduction angle caused by the arbitrary amplitude and phase of the input nonlinear second harmonic, a more general time domain waveform of drain voltage and current of HCM PA can be derived. The load design space is reconstructed by the new time domain waveform of drain voltage and current. The analysis shows that using arbitrary input nonlinearity can provide more flexible input harmonic impedance space in broadband design, which can maintain and improve the performance of broadband PA. Then, an improved T‐type input harmonic control matching network is proposed to control the input nonlinearity more effectively. Finally, for the practical validation of the proposed theory, a broadband hybrid continuous‐mode PA operating at 1.8‐ to 3‐GHz is designed by using a commercial 10‐W GaN high electron mobility transistor (HEMT). The measured results show drain efficiency reaches 65 % to 72.6 % at saturation, 11.9‐ to 14.2‐dB gain and 40.3‐ to 42.2‐dBm saturation output power.