Designing an Octave-bandwidth Doherty Am- Plifier Using a Novel Power Combination Method

In this paper, an octave bandwidth Doherty power amplifier (DPA) using a novel combiner is presented. The fundamental bandwidth limitation of the load modulation concept of a conventional Doherty structure is solved based on the proposed combination method. For verification, an octave bandwidth asymmetric Doherty architecture is implemented by using gallium-nitride (GaN) HEMT Cree CGH40010 and CGH40025 devices in the carrier and peaking amplifiers, respectively. The carrier and peaking amplifiers are designed to achieve optimal operation with 25 Ω load and source impedances. The reduced load and source impedances simplify the matching circuits for broadband operation. Key building blocks, including the proposed combiner, carrier and peaking amplifiers as well as the 50/25 Ω input power divider, are outlined. The measurement results represent higher than 37% and 52% drain efficiencies in 6 dB load modulation region across the frequency range from 0.85 to 1.85GHz and 0.90 to 1.60 GHz, respectively. The implemented Doherty amplifier represents acceptable linearity across the whole operation frequency range. In two-tone signal characterization, the implemented DPA performs with a drain efficiency of 55% and an inter-modulation distortion (IMD) of −30 dBc at an average output power of 41.2 dBm at the center operation frequency of 1.35 GHz. In order to observe wideband signal characterization, a single carrier wideband code-division multiple access (W-CDMA) signal with a peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of 6.5 dB is applied and a drain efficiency of 51% with an adjacent-channel leakage ratio (ACLR) of −31 dBc is achieved at an average output power of 38.4 dBm. Received 20 September 2013, Accepted 12 November 2013, Scheduled 12 November 2013 * Corresponding author: Necip Sahan ([email protected]).