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Class-F power amplifier with high power added efficiency using bowtie-
shaped harmonic control circuit

Article in IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters · February 2015

DOI: 10.1109/LMWC.2014.2382649

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IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 25, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2015 133

Class-F Power Amplifier With High Power

Added Efficiency Using Bowtie-Shaped
Harmonic Control Circuit
Mohsen Hayati, Akram Sheikhi, and Andrei Grebennikov, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—In this letter, a Class-F power amplifier with high power transistor pHEMT ATF34143. Measurement of the fab-
power added efficiency (PAE) is reported. The novel load network ricated Class-F PA shows a maximum power added-efficiency
satisfies the optimum load resistance at fundamental frequency, (PAE) value of 80% at 23.6 dBm output powers.
second and third harmonics. The optimum value of the circuit
parameters is obtained by harmonic balanced analysis at drain High efficiency PA has many advantages such as lower power
voltage 3.1 V. The results show that proposed PA at 2.4 GHz consumption and more battery endurance.
achieved the PAE of approximately 80% at 23.6 dBm output
power for single stage pHEMT.
II. BASIC THEORIES OF CLASS-F POWER AMPLIFIER
Index Terms—Class-F, harmonic control circuit (HCC), power
amplifier (PA) and power added efficiency (PAE). The CMRC exhibits band-stop characteristic to reject unde-
sired frequencies. Also, its compact size reduces circuit dimen-
sion. These two advantages cause to applications of it in RF
I. INTRODUCTION designs [13], [14]. The configuration of the classic Class-F PA
is shown in Fig. 1. The shape of voltage and current waveform

T HE high efficiency RF power amplifier (PA) has growing of the Class-F PA can be controlled by three first harmonics,
popularity in the modern wireless communication system. so the analysis is based on third harmonic termination. In ideal
Many PAs based on harmonic manipulation have been proposed Class-F PA, the load impedance must be short at even harmonics
in [1]–[12]. In recent work on Class-F and Class- , the har- and open at odd harmonics. The drain current waveform in-
monic tuning at input and output has been done, which have cludes even harmonics and is similar to half-sine wave. The
significant influence on efficiency [3]–[6]. In [7], the effect of drain voltage waveform includes odd harmonics and is similar
third harmonic on the performance of the Class- to have max- to half-square wave. To control the performance of the amplifier
imally flat drain-to-source voltage and with the maximum drain a BSHCC is designed. The schematics of the BSHCC are shown
efficiency is considered. For the Class-E amplifiers in [8], [9], in Fig. 2(a). In the simulation model, the substrate used has a di-
an external capacitance is placed across the output terminals of electric constant of 2.2 and thickness of 15 mil. Fig. 2(b) plots
the active devices to satisfy the nominal conditions. On the other the simulation results of the BSHCC. No ripples can be seen
hand, it is really difficult to design high efficiency Class E ampli- in the low-pass region, which is favorable for filtering applica-
fiers using nonlinear transistors. The inverse Class-E PA oper- tions. In this letter, the proposed BSHCC covers third harmonics
ates with lower peak voltage, which reduces the high breakdown (7.2 GHz) of the amplifier. As can be seen from the result, the
voltage requirement of the active device [10]. The effect of the harmonic controller has high attenuation better than 58 dB at
parasitic capacitance is considered in the analysis of Class 7.2 GHz. In the proposed BSHCC, the impedance at the third
PA with application of harmonic control circuit in their outputs harmonics (7.2 GHz) is high, and at second harmonic (4.4 GHz)
under non optimum condition [11] and optimum condition [12] is relatively large. As can be seen in the next section, in the pro-
in frequency of 4 MHz. In this letter, a novel design as a har- posed Class-F PA, low impedance at second harmonic with
monic control circuit (HCC) for Class-F PA on the exploitation transmission line, which inserted between the dc bias and drain
of bow-tie shaped HCC (BSHCC) is developed. The obvious node of pHEMT is achieved. Also, the proposed CMRC can
advantages of this proposed BSHCC lie in simplicity and small be termed as a 50 transmission line, and a simple L-shape
size. Experiment is carried out at 2.4 GHz based on a medium output matching network is sufficient at the fundamental fre-
quency. The adjustment of transmission zero in the stopband
can be achieved by tuning the length and width of the BSHCC as
Manuscript received July 01, 2014; revised September 02, 2014 and October shown in Fig. 2(c) and (d). These figures show that the proposed
05, 2014; accepted October 31, 2014. Date of publication January 12, 2015; date HCC is a tunable structure to have high impedance at third har-
of current version February 10, 2015.
monics. The parameters related to BSHCC are: mm,
M. Hayati and A. Sheikhi are with the Department of Electrical Engi-
neering, Razi University, Tagh-E-Bostan, Kermanshah-67149, Iran (e-mail: mm, mm, mm,
[email protected]). mm, mm, mm, mm,
A. Grebennikov is with Microsemi Corporation, Aliso Viejo, CA 92656 USA.
mm and mm.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this letter are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. The proposed BSHCC has a symmetrical topology. There-
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LMWC.2014.2382649 fore, the even-odd mode can be used to simplify the analysis as

1531-1309 © 2014 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
134 IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 25, NO. 2, FEBRUARY 2015

Fig. 2. (a) The structure of the BSHCC. (b) The simulated parameter of
the BSHCC. (c) Variation of the with different value of . (d) Variation of
Fig. 1. Classic Class-F PA with load network. with different value of .

shown in Fig. 3(b) and (c). Consequently, in order to obtain the

resonant condition for the odd-mode in Fig. 3(b), the input ad-
mittance of the proposed structure should be equal to zero.
So, we have

(1)

Using the same method, the even-mode resonant frequency in

Fig. 3. (a) Equivalent circuit. (b) Odd mode and (c) Even mode.
Fig. 3(c), the input admittance of the proposed structure
should be equal to zero. We obtained

(2)

The transmission zeros of the equivalent circuit for the proposed

BSHCC are obtained when . So we have

(3)

Therefore, the resonator characteristics for tuning transmission

zeros in the stopband can be achieved by adjusting the dimen-
sions of the proposed BSHCC. The schematic circuit and the
photograph of fabricated PA are shown in Fig. 4(a) and (b),
respectively. The circuit is implemented on a substrate with
a relative permittivity and a thickness of 15 mil.
High impedance quarter wavelength stubs are used for the dc
bias feed point that provides short circuit at the second har-
monic. and are the bypass capacitors at the gate and
drain bias networks while and are dc blocking capacitors Fig. 4. (a) The schematic of the proposed Class-F PA, (b) The photograph of
at the input and output ports. The Class-F PA is implemented the fabricated circuit, (c) The simulated waveforms of drain current and voltage.
using pHEMT device ATF-34143 from Agilent Technology be-
cause of the availability of its model from a vendor's library. by tuning the width and length of elements in the layout of the
The second harmonic short circuit is achieved by quarter wave- proposed PA, desired impedance at harmonics can be achieved.
length transmission line which is connected between the
dc supply voltage and drain of the transistor. The effect of the III. PERFORMANCES OF THE CLASS-F POWER AMPLIFIER
matching network on the third harmonics impedance is com- In this Class-F PA, the output and input matching network
pensated by the tuning line (TL) which is shown in Fig. 4(a). So transforms the drain impedance of the active device to a 50
HAYATI et al.: CLASS-F PA WITH HIGH PAE USING BOWTIE-SHAPED HCC 135

in length of load network. The measured results of versus

and PAE versus are given in Fig. 5(a) and (b), respec-
tively. The comparison between the Class-F PA and other work
with different HCC are shown in Table I. Based on simulated
results and comparison with other works, it is evident that the
proposed PA produces good output power and high PAE with
help of suggested load networks.

IV. CONCLUSION
This letter presents a novel structure for realizing
high-frequency and high-efficiency Class-F PAs using
ATF-34143 pHEMT transistors. With the proposed novel
harmonic control circuit, the pHEMT transistor is optimally
loaded at both fundamental and harmonic frequencies. Experi-
mental results show that a highly efficiency Class-F PA mode
is achieved at 2.4 GHz with a state-of-the-art PAE of 80% with
23.6 dBm output power. The total size of the novel harmonic
control circuit and output matching circuit is small that causes
the size reduction.

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