This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES
1
Integrated Design of a Class-J Power Amplifier
Saeed Rezaei, Student Member, IEEE, Leonid Belostotski, Member, IEEE, Fadhel M. Ghannouchi, Fellow, IEEE,
and Pouya Aflaki, Member, IEEE
Abstract—This paper discusses the design of a monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) class-J GaN power amplifier
(PA). Theoretical derivations of optimum load impedances, output
power, and efficiency are presented to demonstrate their dependence on the quality factor of the integrated inductor used in the
output matching network. A group of design curves are obtained
to select the optimum transistor size and impedance according to
the required output power and efficiency for a given inductor loss.
An analytical-based design methodology using the design curves is
proposed. To verify the accuracy of this analytical design approach,
an integrated 0.5-W 15-V monolithic microwave integrated circuit PA is fabricated in 0.8- m GaN technology. The PA exhibits
greater than 50% drain efficiency over 825 MHz, from 2.25 to
3.075 GHz.
Index Terms—Broadband, class-J, design space, GaN HFET,
inductor quality factor, monolithic microwave integrated circuit
(MMIC), optimum resistance, power amplifier (PA).
Fig. 1. Comparison of GaN, GaAs, and Si figures of merit [2].
I. INTRODUCTION
H
IGH output power, high efficiency, and, recently, wide
bandwidth are three desirable factors for RF/microwave
power amplifiers (PAs). Higher circuit power efficiency leads to
lower dc power consumption, therefore increasing the battery
life and relaxing the heat dissipation requirements. Monolithic
microwave integrated circuits (MMICs) are of great interest in
RF/microwave applications due to their smaller sizes compared
with that of hybrid circuits. Among the existing microwave
device technologies, AlGaN–GaN semiconductor technologies are particularly suitable for MMIC power amplifier (PA)
applications due to their superior performances to other semiconductor technologies such as GaAs and Si [1].
Fig. 1 shows GaN figures of merit compared with GaAs and
Si. As can be seen, GaN has significantly greater bandgap energy and breakdown field intensity, which translate into higher
operating voltages. In addition to higher output power, higher
closer
drain voltages move the optimum load resistance
to the center of the Smith chart. This provides the opportunity to minimize losses of the output matching network through
requiring matching networks with low loaded quality factors.
The low-quality-factor matching network is also relatively more
Manuscript received September 11, 2012; revised January 02, 2013; accepted
January 06, 2013. This work was supported in part by Alberta Innovative Future
Technologies (AITF), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
of Canada (NSERC), and the Canada Research Chairs (CRC) Program.
S. Rezaei, F. M. Ghannouchi, and P. Aflaki are with the iRadio Laboratory,
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Calgary,
Calgary AB Canada T2N1N4 (e-mail: srezaein@ucalgary.ca).
L. Belostotski is with Micro/Nano Technologies (MiNT) Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary
AB Canada T2N1N4 (e-mail: lbelosto@ucalgary.ca).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMTT.2013.2247618
broadband thus implying the possibility of wider bandwidth PA
designs. These advantages make GaN device a strong option for
broadband, high-power, and high-efficiency PAs [3], [4].
Broadband PAs are of great interest as there is strong consumer desire to increase the functionality of their wireless devices. The availability of broadband PAs would reduce the need
for multiple amplifiers inside of such devices, thus saving the
development costs and speeding up the implementation cycles.
While a particular semiconductor technology may be
amenable to implement broadband PAs, a selection of a suitable
PA type is perhaps even more important for wide bandwidth
designs. Among the previously proposed PAs, switching-mode
PAs [5], [6] rely on the specific and precise multi-harmonic
impedance terminations such as short and open circuits. These
PAs normally exhibit narrowband frequency performance
(less than 10%) and make switching-mode PAs less appealing
for broadband applications. On the other hand, linear mode
amplifiers such as classes A, AB, and B are less efficient
than switching-mode PAs. Nevertheless, harmonically tuned
class-B PAs can theoretically achieve peak efficiencies as high
as 78.5%. However, the bandwidth of those PAs is also limited
due to the difficulty in the realization of their low impedance
harmonic load terminations over a wide bandwidth [7], [8].
A recently proposed linear class-J mode of operation [9],
with proper fundamental and second harmonic impedances has
shown the theoretical efficiencies as high as those of class“deep” AB and class-B PAs [10]–[20]. However, since class-J
PAs do not require harmonic resonators to achieve the maximum efficiency, there is a potential of increasing PA efficiency
bandwidth compared with other linear amplifiers.
On the other hand, in the integrated realization of power
amplifiers, the inherent loss of inductors in the output matching
0018-9480/$31.00 © 2013 IEEE
This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
2
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES
network has a significant impact on the integrated PA performance and is not normally accounted for in the theoretical
derivations of achievable output power and efficiency in the
literature. Taking the advantages of the class-J PA and considering to the impact of the inductor loss in a PA design
parameters, an implementation of an integrated 0.5-W GaN
class-J PA through the proposed design methodology is the
focus of this manuscript.
This paper starts with a brief review on class-J PAs in
Section II. Impedance locations of class-J on the Smith
chart are illustrated in Section III and a simple two-element
output-matching network is introduced to translate output load
to the nearly class-J impedances. The dependence
of 50
of the PA optimum resistance and efficiency on losses of an
integrated inductor in the output matching network is analyzed
and a design methodology to select the proper transistor size
and the optimum impedance is presented in Section IV. Using
the proposed methodology in Section IV, a MMIC PA is designed in Section V. Finally, the measurement results of the
amplifier are presented in Section VI to show the broadband
performance of the designed PA and confirm the simple and
intuitive theoretical equations presented in Section IV.
Fig. 2. Ideal class-J intrinsic drain voltage and current waveforms normalized
and
respectively,
.
to
where
and
are the dc supply and the transistor knee
voltages, respectively. The maximum and minimum drain voltages are calculated as
II. CLASS-J PAS
(3)
In class-J mode of operation, both intrinsic drain voltage
and current waveforms are theoretically composed of even harmonic components and thus are half sine waves. Moreover, in
contrast to the class-B mode, where real fundamental load and
short-circuit harmonic terminations are used; the class-J mode
of operation is defined by an inductive/capacitive fundamental
and capacitive/inductive second harmonic load terminations.
A class-J amplifier is biased as a conventional “deep”
class-AB PA that will be considered hereafter in the analytical
development as class-B. Thus, a class-J PA demonstrates very
similar drain current waveform to its class-B counterpart.
Taking only second harmonic and neglecting other higher
order even harmonics, the intrinsic half-cosine drain–current
waveform as a function of the angular phase can be expressed
as
(4)
(1)
where
is the transistor maximum drain current. The class-J
drain voltage is engineered to satisfy two conditions. First, as for
class-B or deep class-AB PAs, the drain voltage must be above
zero to avoid clipping and to maintain the linear behavior of the
amplifier. Second, no power must be delivered to the load at the
harmonics.
An intrinsic drain voltage waveform which satisfies the above
conditions can be written as
The intrinsic ideal class-J drain voltage and current waveforms normalized to
and
, respectively, are shown in
Fig. 2. For simplicity in illustration, the knee voltage is assumed
to be zero. The fundamental sine term along with the secondharmonic voltage term keep the voltage waveform above zero.
The reactive components in the fundamental and second-harmonic manifest themselves as both a 45 shift between waveforms and as an increase in the maximum drain voltage to nearly
.
From Fig. 2, the overlap between the drain voltage and cur, where
, disrent waveforms over the range of
sipates power and results in the same theoretical efficiency and
delivered power at fundamental as for a class-B amplifier; i.e.,
% and
, respectively.
In general, by rearranging (2), a set of intrinsic drain voltage
expressions represents a family of class-J drain voltage waveforms that meet the class-J voltage requirements
(5)
where is a constant parameter bounded in the range of
.
Using (1) and (5), the required set of optimum intrinsic fundamental and second harmonic loading impedances presented
to the transistor in class-J PA, under the assumption of the maximum drain voltage swing, are extracted as follows:
(6)
(2)
(7)
This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
REZAEI et al.: INTEGRATED DESIGN OF A CLASS-J POWER AMPLIFIER
Fig. 3. Fundamental (solid line) and second-harmonic (dashed line) design
spaces from class-J through class-B to class-J*.
In the above expressions,
represents the phasor of the
flowing current into the optimum load, whereas the optimum
for the maximum output voltage swing is equal to
load
.
The set of impedances given by (6) and (7) are located on
“design spaces” on the Smith chart as shown in Fig. 3, starting
through class-B
and ending up
from class-J
in class-J*
. All fundamental and second-harmonic
impedances in Fig. 3 result in the same output power, gain, and
efficiency. This family of impedances provides the flexibility of
choosing the design space amendable for a particular PA implementation. In addition, it is also important to note that, theoretically, no third-harmonic component exists in the class-J intrinsic
current waveform, and, hence, the third harmonic is assumed to
be opened.
III. SELECTED DESIGN AREA FOR CLASS-J PA
In general, the optimum intrinsic resistance of a class-J PA,
, can be located in two distinct areas on the Smith chart:
higher than 50 and lower than 50 . In relatively high-power
PAs with high drain currents, the optimum resistance value
would fall inside the resistance area that is lower than 50 .
However, to design a medium output power PA, such as designed in this work, the optimum resistance should fall within
the resistance area that is higher than 50 . Also, selecting
higher
has the advantage of reducing the dissipated power
in the drain parasitic resistance, which is an extra power loss
on top of the matching network loss and degrades the PA
performance.
The fundamental and second-harmonic impedance loci of
and class-J*
for
50 are
class-J
shown on the Smith chart in Fig. 4. From this figure, to reach
any fundamental impedance on the class-J and J* loci from the
center of the Smith chart, using only a two-lumped-element
matching network suitable for - and -band integrated amplifiers, two possible configurations, identified as (a) and (b)
in Fig. 4, can be used. Configuration (b) is attractive to simultaneously act as a matching network and a dc supply network.
However, in configuration (b), the second harmonic impedance
presented to the transistor is located far from the edge of the
Smith chart and the impedance seen by the third harmonic is
3
Fig. 4. Fundamental and second-harmonic optimum intrinsic impedance loci
50 in class-J,
(solid line) and class-J*,
(dashed
for
line).
Fig. 5. Schematic of the designed class-J amplifier.
far from open, which is theoretically required in class-J PAs.
Therefore, configuration (a) is selected in this work.
Configuration (a) has the advantage of absorbing the intrinsic
drain–source capacitance of the transistor into its shunt capacitor and, hence, reducing the required matching capacitance
value.
The circuit schematic, which uses configuration (a) for the
output matching network and will be discussed in more detail
later in Section V, is shown in Fig. 5. In this design, the output
and parmatching network is built with series spiral inductor
allel metal–insulator–metal (MIM) capacitor , which nearly
synthesize the required fundamental and second-harmonic loads
at the transistor drain.
Taking into account that the output matching network is capable of presenting nearly equal impedances at fundamental and
second-harmonic frequencies for the PA in Fig. 5, the study of
on the amplifier output power and efthe impact of losses in
ficiency is discussed in detail in Section IV.
IV. STUDY OF INDUCTOR QUALITY FACTOR ON PA
PERFORMANCE AND PROPOSED DESIGN METHODOLOGY
Since the output matching network significantly affects the
MMIC PA efficiency and output power delivered to the load,
here we study the impact of the output matching network
losses at the fundamental frequency on the PA performance and
present a methodology to determine the design parameters of
the PA presented in Fig. 5. As the capacitors have significantly
are ignored.
higher quality factors than inductors, losses in
To investigate the impact of the inductor losses on the MMIC
This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
4
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES
PA performance, the inductor with the finite quality factor
is modeled as a lossless inductor
in series with a resistor
. Using this representation, the next part of this
section will derive design expressions, which directly relate the
inductor quality factor to the transistor width and optimum
. The usefulness of this relationintrinsic load resistance
ship is then demonstrated through the design of an integrated
class-J PA with the schematic illustrated in Fig. 5. Note that
the intrinsic output capacitance of the transistor is absorbed
, and the following theoretical expressions are
in capacitor
derived at the fundamental frequency.
as the impedance looking into the matching
Considering
network and
and
as currents flowing into the transistor
drain and output load, respectively, the power delivered to the
is obtained as
and to the output load
matching network
,
The optimum intrinsic load impedance in a class-J PA,
as a function of the inductor is derived by substituting (12)
to yield
into
(14)
The above expression is a function of inductor
, which
makes the design procedure dependent on a specific inductor
value. To eliminate this dependence, another expression relating
to
is required. From Fig. 5, the admittance looking
into the matching network at node 1, , is equal to the class-J
optimum intrinsic admittance presented to the transistor, i.e.,
. Therefore, equating the real parts of
and
results in the following expression:
(15)
(8)
(9)
where
, which is the series loss resistance of the inductor
, can be substituted into (15) with
and yields
where the inductor loss is included in
. Then, the amplifier
power and efficiency reduction ratio due to the inductor loss
from the transistor drain to the output load is calculated as
(16)
(10)
Then, using (14) and (16) to eliminate
expression relating
to the inductor
and
is derived as:
, a second-order
, output power
and are the PA efficiencies at the load and the tranwhere
sistor drain reference planes, respectively. From (10), the reduction ratio of the PA output power and efficiency is derived as
(11)
As expected, (11) shows that series low-quality inductors in
the output matching network can significantly degrade the PA
delivered power and efficiency to the load. Thus, an integrated
PA design procedure should not only focus on presenting the optimum load impedance to the transistor but also on optimizing
the losses in the matching network. Taking into account the inductor , a procedure to choose the circuit design parameters,
to achieve the desired output
such as transistor size and
power and efficiency is discussed next.
By substituting
from (11) into
, the transistor maximum drain current can be derived as
(12)
Considering a hypothetical reference transistor with width
and generating the maximum allowed current
, the
current density
can be used with (12) to
determine the required transistor width from the following
expression:
(13)
(17)
Solving (17) results in two roots
and
(with positive and negative signs in the numerator, respectively):
(18)
where and are coefficients related to
parameters, which are given as
and
(19)
(20)
Since, for small values of , optimum resistance
results in negative values and are unacceptable,
is the meaningful solution of (17) and is used to determine the reduction
ratio and the optimum transistor width.
Similarly, using (14) in (11) to eliminate
, the new expression for the PA output power and efficiency reduction ratio
is yielded as
(21)
where
inductor
is the acceptable solution of (17) for a given
and delivered power to the load . The drop of the
This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
REZAEI et al.: INTEGRATED DESIGN OF A CLASS-J POWER AMPLIFIER
5
Fig. 6. Transistor optimum intrinsic resistance as function of the inductor
for different
and
, using technology parameters of
0.75 A/mm
2.2 V.
and
PA efficiency from transistor drain to the output load due to the
output matching network is calculated as
Fig. 7. Efficiency drop (left vertical axis) and PA output power and efficiency
reduction ratio (right vertical axis), as functions of the inductor for different
and
, using technology parameters of
0.75 A/mm and
2.2
V.
(22)
where
is the dc power, which is obtained from
, and
is deduced from
.
Finally, the modified expression for the total transistor width
by eliminating
from (13) is derived as
(23)
Expressions (18), (21), (22), and (23) are design equations,
which relate the important PA parameters, i.e., the efficiency
and the output power, to the transistor width, technology-limited
inductor , and the current density .
Fig. 6 demonstrates the optimum resistance
from (18)
as a function of the inductor
for the used GaN technology
60 mA/80 m, knee voltage of 2.2 V and for
parameters
dc supply voltages of 15, 12, and 9 V.
For each dc supply voltage, acceptable optimum intrinsic reranging from 26.5
sistances are plotted for the output power
to 27.5 dBm. From Fig. 6, for a given output power
and
value, lower inductor requires a lower
. Also, decreasing
reduces
toward 50 , which could make the output
matching network design much simpler. The drawback of lowering
, when
is fixed, associates with an increase in
and, consequently, an increase in the transistor width
the
with its associated larger parasitic capacitances.
Similarly, Fig. 7 illustrates the PA output power and the efficiency reduction ratio obtained from (21) and the efficiency
Fig. 8. Total transistor width as function of the inductor for different
and
, using technology parameters of
0.75 A/mm and
2.2 V.
drop
from (22), whereas Fig. 8 shows the transistor optimal
widths determined from (23) as functions of the inductor for
the same range of
and
used in Fig. 6.
As can be seen from Figs. 7 and 8, lowering dc supply voltage
and
minimizes the reduction ratio
for a given inductor
and the efficiency drop, respectively, while maximizing the total
transistor width.
An algorithmic design methodology has been developed for a
PA shown in Fig. 5 to determine the amplifier design parameters.
Based on the design requirements, the following steps are used
and transistor width to achieve the
to select the proper
desired output power and efficiency.
values from Fig. 6 over dc
Step 1) Determine possible
range for given parameters: 1)
supply voltage
PA output power
and 2) technology’s inductor
quality factor .
This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
6
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES
Step 2) Determine the total transistor widths
corresponding to the selected range of
values from
Fig. 8.
and , determine from
Step 3) For the given parameters
Fig. 7 the efficiency drop as well as the output power
and efficiency reduction ratio , and then select the
optimal dc supply value
.
Step 4) For the
value, use Figs. 6 and 8 to select
and
to obtain the minimum efficiency
drop due to the output matching network.
Step 5) Design the output matching network to translate load
to class-J impedances given in (6)
impedance
and (7).
V. CLASS-J AMPLIFIER DESIGN
To verify the theoretical expectations of class-J behavior, the
proposed design procedure in Section IV can be used to determine the design parameters of a PA delivering 27 dBm of power
at 2.5 GHz to a 50- load. The technology used in this work is
0.8- m GaN process on SiC substrate.
The preliminary version of the provided GaN design kit, at the
time of the PA design, included a limited number of transistor
widths and fingers to provide the desired output power. Also,
the existing integrated inductors in the design kit had the maximum quality factor of nearly 10 at 2.5 GHz. Taking into account
those two restrictions, we start the amplifier design according to
the proposed design steps. From Fig. 6, for output power
27 dBm and inductor
10, three intrinsic optimum resistances of 43, 83, and 135 corresponding to dc supply voltages
of 9, 12, and 15 V are read. Using Fig. 8, the transistor widths
for those optimum resistances are determined as 425, 315, and
253 m, respectively. From Fig. 7, the efficiency drop due to the
lossy matching network for the determined optimum resistances
are obtained as 4.7%, 9%, and 12.3% respectively. Therefore,
from the efficiency perspective for the monolithic technology
used and 27-dBm output power targeted, the optimum set of
design parameters that should have been selected are
9 V leading to
43 and
425 m. Since the
designed and fabricated PA preceded the development of the
design methodology, we selected initially and unfortunately the
15 V
suboptimal design with the following parameters:
135 and
253 m for the output
leading to
power
27 dBm and inductor
10.
The closest total transistor width in the provided GaN design
kit to the determined width of 253 m is 240 m. Based on the
available number of fingers and widths in the design kit, it can
be constructed either with four 60- m or six 40- m gate fingers.
Due to the lower parasitic capacitances in smaller gate widths,
we choose six 40- m gate fingers to construct the GaN HFET
in this work. The HFET’s dc drain current and the transconductance as functions of the gate voltage are demonstrated in Fig. 9.
3.8 V when the
The device is completely pinched off at
drain is biased at 15 V. The drain current at
0 V is
160 mA, and the maximum drain current at
0.8 V is ob180 mA. According to the class-J bias
tained at nearly
condition of 5%
[9], the device is biased at
3.4 V
7 mA.
to draw the quiescent drain current of almost
Fig. 9. DC transfer characteristics for 6
15 V.
40 m GaN HFET in bias point of
Fig. 10. (a) Output fundamental and (b) second-harmonic load-pulling contours with de-embedded drain–source capacitance at 15-V dc supply, 17-dBm
input power, and 2.5-GHz. PAE contours (solid lines) and output power contours (dotted lines).
The selected transistor is first unconditionally stabilized by an
on-chip stabilization network shown in Fig. 5. The stabilization
20 and the largest
network consists of a series resistor
available inductor in the design kit of 8.82 nH, which is used
to provide a constant dc current and resonate at 2.5 GHz with
the combination of the gate node capacitance and an external
0.36 pF.
capacitor,
To verify the theoretically determined intrinsic load impedances for the designed PA, transistor load-pulling simulation
in Advanced Design System (ADS) simulator to achieve the
maximum output power in the presence of the stability network is performed. In the transistor load pulling, the parasitic
drain–source capacitance of 10 fF is de-embedded to obtain the
intrinsic impedances presented at the intrinsic transistor drain
plane. The output power and power-added efficiency (PAE) contours at the fundamental and second-harmonic frequencies for
an input power of 17 dBm and center frequency 2.5 GHz are
shown in Fig. 10(a) and (b), respectively. From Fig. 10(a), the
transistor load pulling shows the maximum output power at a
transistor drain plane of 27.5 dBm and PAE of 57%, which corresponds to a drain efficiency of almost 72%.
The intrinsic output load impedances corresponding to the
maximum output power and PAE obtained from load pulling
This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
REZAEI et al.: INTEGRATED DESIGN OF A CLASS-J POWER AMPLIFIER
7
TABLE I
INTRINSIC CLASS-J FUNDAMENTAL, SECOND-HARMONIC, AND SOURCE
IMPEDANCES TO ACHIEVE THE MAXIMUM OUTPUT POWER AT 2.5 GHZ
Fig. 12. Class-J PA scattering parameters.
Fig. 11. Class-J amplifier intrinsic drain voltage and current waveforms.
and class-J design theory are shown in Table I. As can be seen,
the theoretical results are in good agreement with those from
transistor load pulling.
from transistor
Table I also provides the source impedance
source pulling at 2.5 GHz, which is used to design the input
matching network. This value cannot be estimated with the relatively simple analytical device model used to derive the design
methodology. The input matching network to translate 50 to
in Fig. 5 consists of a series capacitor
0.36 pF, a shunt
inductor
5.28 nH, and a series capacitor
6 pF, which
blocks the dc path through inductor
to the ground.
In order to design an output matching network to translate
50 to the determined theoretical class-J load impedances, a
7.1 nH, with
of nearly 10 at
series spiral inductor
0.21 pF are used.
2.5 GHz and a MIM shunt capacitor
The simulated intrinsic drain voltage and current waveforms
of the designed class-J amplifier after de-embedding of the drain
source capacitance is shown in Fig. 11. The simulation is performed with 17 dBm CW input signal at 2.5 GHz. The minimum and maximum intrinsic drain voltages are read as 2.2
and 37.5 V, respectively. With almost 50-ps time difference between the maximum voltage and zero current points in one RF
cycle, the simulated PA demonstrates a nearly 45 phase shift at
2.5 GHz between the current and voltage waveforms at the drain
of the field-effect transistor (FET), as was theoretically expected
in Fig. 2. The quiescent drain bias current is maintained at 7 mA,
which corresponds to a “deep” class-AB mode of operation.
The simulated amplifier scattering parameters are demonstrated in Fig. 12. The maximum small signal gain is achieved
17 dB at 2.4 GHz whereas the isolation is simulated better than
Fig. 13. Die photograph of the GaN MMIC amplifier.
23 dB in whole range of 2 GHz to 3.2 GHz. The minimum
return loss is obtained 10 dB at about 2.4 GHz.
VI. LAYOUT AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
To verify the accuracy of the proposed design procedure and
the theoretical results obtained in Section IV, a MMIC PA was
fabricated and its die photograph is shown in Fig. 13. In the
fabricated 2 2 mm PA, circuit components are connected
through 52- m-wide CPW lines with nearly 50- characteristic impedance. As the maximum current-carrying capacity
for the interconnect layers in the integrated circuit technology
in this work is 6 mA/ m for a single-layer interconnect,
then a 52- m-wide CPW line, providing 50- characteristic
impedance, can also carry the maximum drain current
180 mA, which was obtained from Fig. 9. Five 18- m-wide
bridges depicted in Fig. 13 are employed to connect ground
planes on the top layer. Out of two gold metal layers provided
by the foundry, the amplifier layout is mostly realized on the
This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
8
Fig. 14. Amplifier output power, drain efficiency, and PAE at the output load
plane as functions of the input power at 2.5 GHz.
Fig. 15. Amplifier output power and drain efficiency at the load plane as functions of the frequency at 17-dBm CW input power.
first gold layer with the exception of the spiral inductors and
the MIM capacitors, which are fabricated on both metal layers.
The fabricated chip was mounted on a ceramic laminate. The
power supply bond pad was wire-bonded to a printed circuit
board (PCB) trace on the laminate. All measurements were conducted on wafer, using ground–signal–ground (GSG) probes.
Fig. 14 shows the measurement and simulation results for the
output power and efficiency at the load plane as functions of the
input power swept from 0 to 20 dBm at a center frequency of
is measured
2.5 GHz. Input 1-dB gain compression point
as 12.5 dBm. At the input power of 17 dBm, the output power
is measured as 26.8 dBm, which corresponds to the drain efficiency of 57%. At this point, the amplifier gain is compressed to
about 3.2 dB. The maximum drain efficiency of nearly 59% at
the saturation output power is achieved. In 10-dB input power
back-off from the output power saturation point, the drain efficiency of greater than 44% is also measured.
Fig. 15 demonstrates measured and simulated output power
and drain efficiency as functions of the frequency at 17-dBm
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES
Fig. 16. Amplifier simulated drain efficiency at the transistor drain plane in
comparison with the measured efficiency at the output load plane as functions
of the frequency at 17-dBm CW input power.
input power. To generate this input power and apply to the amplifier, a signal generator along with a driver amplifier and an
isolator are utilized. The isolator is used between the driver amplifier and the MMIC PA to avoid any potential instability and
damage. As can be seen, the drain efficiency is measured greater
than 50% over 825 MHz from 2.25 to 3.075 GHz, whereas the
output power varies almost 1.5 dB over 625 MHz from 2.225 to
2.85 GHz.
Fig. 16 represents the simulated drain efficiency at the transistor drain and the measured drain efficiency at the output load
planes as functions of the frequency. Due to the inductor loss,
a nearly 12.5% drop from the simulated efficiency at the transistor drain to the measured efficiency at the output load plane is
observed, which is in good agreement with the theoretical value
of almost 12% shown in Fig. 7.
To investigate the linearity performance of the realized amplifier, inter-modulation distortion (IMD) measurement is performed using a two-tone signal.
The resultant third-order IMD (IMD3) performance, obtained
with 1-MHz tone spacing at a center frequency of 2.5 GHz,
is depicted in Fig. 17, in which the IMD3 is plotted as function of the output back-off (OPB). As can be seen, the amplifier
presents a minimum IMD3 of 32 dBc at 5-dB OPB. The IMD3
characteristic of the amplifier agrees with the predicted IMD3
patterns normally encountered on class-B PAs [21].
for given inductor
and
Based on Fig. 7, lowering
decreases the efficiency drop in the output
output power
matching network. To validate this, we carried on two additional
class-J PA designs in ADS using dc supply voltages of 12 V
27 dBm
(design 2) and 9 V (design 3) that can deliver
at 2.5 GHz to the output load 50 . Their design led to series
inductors in the output matching network with of nearly 10 at
2.5 GHz in both cases. Total transistor width is increased from
240 m in the original design, i.e.,
15 V, to the realizable sizes of 320 m (8 40 m) and 420 m (6 70 m) in
designs 2 and 3, respectively, while the optimum intrinsic resistance presented to the new transistors is decreased from 135
in the original design to 83 and 43 , respectively. The theoretical, from Fig. 7, and ADS simulation efficiency drop values for
This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
REZAEI et al.: INTEGRATED DESIGN OF A CLASS-J POWER AMPLIFIER
9
the comparison difficult against those discrete PAs reported in
the literature in terms of the efficiency and output power however; in terms of the bandwidth, it is among the best reported
results of the class-J PAs.
VII. CONCLUSION
Fig. 17. Amplifier measured IMD3 as function of the output power back-off at
a center frequency of 2.5 GHz.
TABLE II
EFFICIENCY DROP VALUES IN THREE DESIGNS WITH
NOMINAL FREQUENCY
12 AND 9 V AT
This paper presented a design methodology for an integrated
0.5-W GaN MMIC class-J PA along with an analytical study and
quantitative analysis of the power-efficiency design paradigm.
In this design, the losses in the output matching network are accounted to come up with an optimal design for a given output
power. It is also shown that the output matching network, which
does not require harmonic terminations such as short for harmonic tuned class-B, allows a class-J PA to achieve the broadband frequency of operation. A class-J PA was fabricated in a
GaN technology to verify the accuracy of the theoretical design
procedure and the simulation results. The fabricated broadband
GaN MMIC class-J amplifier in 15-V dc supply voltage, experimentally demonstrated the drain efficiency of at least 50%
in more than 800-MHz bandwidth from 2.25 to 3.075 GHz. Finally, two additional class-J PA designs were simulated to verify
the theoretical approach to PA efficiency drop optimization by
lowering the dc supply voltage.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank CMC Corporation for supplying the GaN design kit and Agilent Technologies for providing Educational license of ADS software.
- AND
TABLE III
-BAND CLASS-J PAS
designs 2 and 3 are compared in Table II. As expected from the
theory, the simulation results also verify the efficiency drop reduction from the original design to designs 2 and 3, when the dc
supply voltages are decreased. The slight discrepancies between
the drop in the efficiency values predicted by the theory and
ADS simulation are likely due to the fact that the intrinsic losses
in the transistor are not accounted in the simple model used to
develop the analytical designed methodology in Section IV.
A summary of the results presented in this paper and class-J
PA results in the - and -band reported in the literature can be
seen in Table III in terms of bandwidth, efficiency, gain, output
power and the gain comparison points. Except of our work, all
the other designs use 10 W packaged GaN transistor connected
to the off-chip matching circuits. The technology limitation and
the low Q on-chip matching circuit loss in our MMIC PA make
REFERENCES
[1] R. S. Pengelly, S. M. Wood, J. W. Milligan, S. T. Sheppard, and W.
L. Pribble, “A review of GaN on SiC high electron-mobility power
transistors and MMICs,” IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., vol. 60,
no. 6, pp. 1764–1783, Jun. 2012.
[2] B. Rioux, “GaN800 foundry process,” in Proc. 1st Can. Microsyst.
Corporation GaN Workshop, Montreal, QC, Canada, Nov. 2010.
[3] M. Akbarpour, M. Helaoui, and F. M. Ghannouchi, “A transformerless load-modulated (TLLM) architecture for efficient wideband power
amplifiers,” IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., vol. 60, no. 9, pp.
2863–2874, Sep. 2012.
[4] R. Darraji, F. M. Ghannouchi, and M. Healoui, “Mitigation of bandwidth limitation in wireless Doherty amplifiers with substantial bandwidth enhancement using digital techniques,” IEEE Trans. Microw.
Theory Tech., vol. 60, no. 9, pp. 2875–2885, Sep. 2012.
[5] N. O. Sokal, “Class-E switching-mode high-efficiency tuned RF/microwave power amplifier: Improved design equations,” in IEEE MTT-S
Int. Microw. Symp. Dig., Boston, MA, USA, Jun. 2000, vol. 2, pp.
779–782.
[6] P. Aflaki, R. Negra, and F. Ghannouchi, “Design and implementation
of an inverse class-F power amplifier with 79% efficiency by using a
switched based active device model,” in Proc. IEEE Radio Wireless
Symp., San Diego, CA, USA, 2008, pp. 423–426.
[7] T. H. Lee, The Design of CMOS Radio-Frequency Integrated Circuits,
2nd ed. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univ., 2004.
[8] P. Colantonio, F. Giannini, and E. Limiti, High Efficiency RF and Microwave Solid State Power Amplifiers. Hoboken, NJ, USA: Wiley,
2009.
[9] P. Wright, J. Lees, J. Benedikt, P. J. Tasker, and S. C. Cripps, “A
methodology for realizing high efficiency class-J in a linear and broadband PA,” IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., vol. 57, no. 12, pp.
3196–3204, Dec. 2009.
[10] P. Wright, J. Lees, P. J. Tasker, J. Benedikt, and S. C. Cripps, “An efficient, linear, broadband class-J-mode PA realized using RF waveform
engineering,” in IEEE MTT-S Int. Microw. Symp. Dig., Boston, MA,
USA, Jun. 2009, pp. 653–656.
This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.
10
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES
[11] S. C. Cripps, P. J. Tasker, A. L. Clarke, J. Lees, and J. Benedikt, “On
the continuity of high efficiency modes in linear RF power amplifiers,”
IEEE Microw. Wireless Compon. Lett., vol. 19, no. 10, pp. 665–667,
Oct. 2009.
[12] D. R. Parveg, P. Singerl, A. Wiesbauer, H. M. Nemati, and C. Fager,
“A broadband, efficient, overdriven class-J RF power amplifier for
burst mode operation,” in Proc. Eur. Microw. Conf., Paris, France,
Sep. 2010, pp. 424–427.
[13] J. Moon, J. Kim, and B. Kim, “Investigation of a class-J power amfor optimized operation,” IEEE Trans.
plifier with a nonlinear
Microw. Theory Tech., vol. 58, no. 11, pp. 2800–2811, Nov. 2010.
[14] K. Mimis, K. A. Morris, and J. P. McGeehan, “A 2 GHz GaN class-J
power amplifier for base station applications,” in Proc. IEEE Topical
Conf. Power Amplifiers for Wireless and Radio Applications, Phoenix,
AX, USA, Jan. 2011, pp. 5–8.
[15] N. Tuffy, A. Zhu, and T. J. Brazil, “Class-J RF power amplifier with
wideband harmonic suppression,” in IEEE MTT-S Int. Microw. Symp.
Dig., Baltimore, MD, USA, Jun. 2011, pp. 1–4.
[16] J. R. Powell, M. J. Uren, T. Martin, A. McLachlan, P. J. Tasker, J.
J. Bell, R. S. Saini, S. P. Woodington, J. Benedikt, and S. C. Cripps,
“GaAs X-band high efficiency (65%) broadband (30%) amplifier
MMIC based on the class B to class J continuum,” in IEEE MTT-S
Inte. Microw. Symp. Dig., Baltimore, MD, USA, Jun. 2011, pp. 1–4.
[17] J. H. Kim, S. J. Lee, B. H. Park, S. H. Jang, J. H. Jung, and C. S.
Park, “Analysis of high-efficiency power amplifier using second harmonic manipulation: Inverse class-F/J amplifiers,” IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., vol. 59, no. 8, pp. 2024–2036, Aug. 2011.
[18] R. Wu, J. Lopez, Y. Li, and D. Lie, “A highly efficient 1-Watt broadband class-J SiGe power amplifier at 700 MHz,” in Proc. Conf. Silicon
Monolithic Integr. Circuits in RF Syst., Santa Clara, CA, USA, 2012,
pp. 69–72.
[19] J. Moon, J. Lee, R. S. Pengelly, R. Baker, and B. Kim, “Highly efficient
saturated power amplifier,” IEEE Microw. Mag., pp. 125–131, 2012.
[20] K. Mimis, K. A. Morris, S. Bensmida, and J. P. McGeehan, “Multichannel and wideband power amplifier design methodology for 4G
communication systems based on hybrid class-J operation,” IEEE
Trans. Microw. Theory Tech., vol. 60, no. 8, pp. 2562–2570, Aug.
2012.
[21] N. B. de Carvalho and J. C. Pedro, “Large- and small-signal IMD behavior of microwave power amplifiers,” IEEE Trans. Microw. Theory
Tech., vol. 47, no. 12, pp. 2364–2374, Dec. 1999.
Saeed Rezaei (S’09) received the B.Sc. degree
(with honors) from K. N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 2001, and the M.Sc. degree
from Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran
Polytechnic), Tehran, in 2004, both in electrical
engineering. He is currently working toward the
Ph.D. degree at the University of Calgary, Calgary,
AB, Canada.
From 2004 to 2009, he worked in the telecommunication industry in Tehran, Iran, where he served
as Senior Research Engineer with the RF Group for
GSM900, DCS1800, WCDMA, MMDS and LMDS Base Transceiver Station
(BTS) projects. He is currently with the Intelligent RF Radio Laboratory (iRadio
Laboratory), University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada. His research interests
include high-efficiency broadband RF power amplifier design, advanced transceivers circuit and system design, and monolithic microwave integrated circuit
and analog radio frequency integrated circuit design.
Mr. Rezaei was the recipient of the Teledyne DALSA Corporation Award
in the Componentware category at the TEXPO competition, held by Canadian
Microsystem Corporation (CMC) in Ottawa, ON, Canada, in October 2011. He
was also the recipient of the Analog Devices Inc. Outstanding Student Designer
Award in 2012. He also achieved Alberta Innovates Technology Futures (AITF)
and Izaac Walton Killam Scholarships in 2012.
Leonid Belostotski (S’97–M’01) received the B.Sc.
and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from
the University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada,
in 1997 and 2000, respectively, and the Ph.D.
degree from the University of Calgary, Calgary, AB,
Canada, in 2007.
A large portion of his M.Sc. thesis program was
spent with the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory, National Research Council (NRC), Penticton,
BC, Canada, where he designed and prototyped a
distance measurement and phase synchronization
system for the Canadian Large Adaptive Reflector telescope. Following his
graduation, he was with Murandi Communications Ltd., as an RF Engineer,
during which time he designed devices for high-volume consumer applications
and low-volume high-performance devices for the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, Mauna Kea, HI, USA. He is currently an Associate Professor with the
University of Calgary, the Director of the Micro/Nano Technologies (MiNT)
Laboratory, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada, and the President of
his own engineering consulting firm. His research interests include RF and
mixed-signal ICs, high-sensitivity receiver systems and antenna arrays, and
terahertz systems.
Dr. Belostotski was the recipient of the IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques 2008 MTT-11 Contest on “Creativity and Originality in Microwave Measurements” and the Analog Devices Inc. Outstanding Student Designer Award
in 2007.
Fadhel M. Ghannouchi (S’84–M’88–SM’93–F’07)
received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees from École
Polytechnique de Montréal, Montréal, QC Canada,
in 1983 and 1984, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree
from the University of Montréal, Montréal, QC,
Canada, in 1987.
He is currently a Professor, Alberta Innovates
Technology Futures/Canada Research Chair, and
Director of iRadio Laboratory, Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, Schulich School of
Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB,
Canada. He has held several invited positions at several academic and research
institutions in Europe, North America, and Japan. He has provided consulting
services to a number of microwave and wireless communications companies.
He has authored and coauthored over 500 publications. He authored and
coauthored 3 books. He holds 12 U.S. patents with five pending. His research
interests are in the areas of microwave instrumentation and measurements,
nonlinear modeling of microwave devices and communications systems,
design of power- and spectrum-efficient microwave amplification systems, and
design of intelligent RF transceivers for wireless and satellite communications.
Prof. Ghannouchi is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and
Technology (IET). He is a Distinguished Microwave Lecturer of the IEEE
Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (IEEE MTT-S).
Pouya Aflaki (M’12) received the M.Sc. degree in
electrical engineering from Amirkabir University
of Technology (Tehran Polyphonic), Tehran, Iran,
in 2006, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Calgary, Calgary,
AB, Canada, in 2011.
In September 2006, he joined the iRadio Laboratory, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada,
as a Ph.D. student and Research Assistant. From
October 2011 to April 2012, he was a Post-Doctoral
Fellow with LACIME Laboratory, Ecole de technologie superieure (ETS), Montreal, QC, Canada, where he was involved with
designing a laser diode driver for medical applications. Since May 2012, he has
been a Post-Doctoral Fellow with the iRadio Laboratory, University of Calgary,
working on wideband switching-mode power amplifier and advanced wireless
transmitter design. His research interests include linear and switching-mode
microwave power amplifiers, microwave passive circuits design, advanced
transmitter architectures, linearization techniques, and large-signal device
modeling.