Proceedings of the 39th European Microwave Conference

5W, 0.35 – 8 GHz Linear Power Amplifier Using

GaN HEMT
Ahmed Sayed1, Ahmed Al Tanany2, Georg Boeck3
Microwave Engineering Laboratory, Berlin University of Technology
Einsteinufer 25, 10587 Berlin, Germany
1
sayed@mwt.ee.tu-berlin.de
2
atanany@mwt.ee.tu-berlin.de
3
boeck@tu-berlin.de

Abstract— In this paper, a 0.35 – 8 GHz, 5 W, linear power
amplifier based on GaN HEMT die is reported. Load pull
characterization was used to optimize the power performance in
the operating bandwidth. 3D-EM simulations were also
performed to model the coaxial 50 Ohm connections, bond wires
and matching networks resulting in an excellent agreement
between simulations and measurements. Regarding the
performance, the designed single stage PA has exhibited 9 ± 1 dB
gain, an output power (Pout) of greater than 37 dBm (5 W),
worst power added efficiency (PAE) of 20 % over a multi-octave
(0.35 – 8 GHz) bandwidth. The PA has been also fully
characterized from the linearity point of view based on single-
tone (AM/AM, AM/PM) and two-tone techniques (with 100 kHz
frequency spacing). An AM/AM and AM/PM distortions of only
± 0.5 [dB/dB] and ± 2 [dB/deg] at 8 GHz have been observed. As
a measure of linearity in two-tone performance an output third-
and second- order intercept points (OIP3, OIP2) have been
extracted over the whole bandwidth. An OIP3 of ≥ 49 dBm and
OIP2 of ≥ 67 dBm can be achieved.
I. INTRODUCTION
Broadband power amplifiers covering L, S and C frequency
bands have very great challenge in communication systems
because of their applications in wireless, radar, aerospace and
military systems. Design of such amplifiers to cover a multi-
octave bandwidth need an accurate and efficient procedure
that consider transistor selection, load pull characterization
and modeling for all the components used in the design. Wide
bandgap technology such as GaN and SiC [1] offers the
demand of such kind of amplifiers because of its high
breakdown voltage, high operating temperature and high
power density. As a result, easy impedance matching, relaxed
operating conditions, high power and small size reduce design
effort. As a result of frequency limitation in case of packaged
transistors up to 4 GHz, a 10 W GaN HEMT die has been
selected in order to attain the required performance in the high
frequency band. Compared with the state-of-the-art, the
authors have developed 5 W linear power amplifiers that
cover 2.4 GHz and 3.4 GHz bandwidth based on SiC
MESFET [2] and GaN HEMT [3], respectively. Several
broadband MMIC and hybrid power amplifiers have been
published, too [4 – 7]. In this work, an ultra broadband (0.35 –
8 GHz), 5 W linear PA based on GaN HEMT die has been
designed. To the authors’ knowledge, the reported
performance has been not achieved with any other reported
hybrid PA design. Transistor selection is introduced in Sec. II.
Sec. III introduces load pull characterization based on an ADS
model delivered by the manufacture for the selected transistor
together with load pull measurements that have been done in
the Lab to completely address the broadband design. Follow
this, broadband matching networks are developed for low loss,
gain flatness and stability improving in Sec. IV. Measured and
simulated results for small signal and large signal
performances are presented and discussed in details in Sec. V
and finally, Sec. IV summarizes and concludes the work.
II. TRANSISTOR SELECTION
The first step in this design is to select the RF transistor to
meet the amplifier requirements. The proposed amplifier
should be linear, covers the frequency band 0.35 GHz to
8 GHz and achieves 5 W output power. Besides the data sheet
given by the manufacture which almost introduces the typical
values regarding small signal as well as large signal
specifications, maximum stable gain (MSG) has to be
considered. This parameter gives the first indication regarding
the maximum gain that can be absolutely achieved in small
signal design. A comparison of the MSG of the packaged GaN
HEMT and its die delivered 8 dB and 14 dB at 8 GHz,
respectively. Based on the given specifications, a 10 W GaN
HEMT die (CGH60015D) from Cree has been selected for the
design. The operating drain voltage is recommended to be
28 V however for class A operation, the optimum gate biasing
is found to be - 1.3 V which delivers a drain current of
650 mA.
III. LOAD PULL CHARACTERIZATION
Based on the selected transistor, load pull setup using
source and load tuners has been built to characterize the
device in the frequency band (0.1 – 9 GHz). Goal of this
procedure is to get the optimum source and load impedances
that deliver the maximum output power. An RC parallel
combination is proposed at the input to improve the amplifier
stability in the high frequency band. Further improvement in
the amplifier stability in the low frequency band (which will
be discussed later in Sec. IV) can be achieved by
compensating the gain in this range, consequently increasing
the stability factor (K). Fig. 1 shows a constellation of the
extracted optimum source and load impedances (Zsopt, ZLopt)

978-2-87487-011-8 © 2009 EuMA 488 29 September - 1 October 2009, Rome, Italy

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in the frequency band from fL = 0.1 GHz to 9 GHz. The finally to a new Zsopt which can be transformed to 50 Ohm
diagram also shows the Γ circles for Bode/ Fano limit during an input matching network (IMN). Goals of the third
concerning the broadband approach. step are to minimize the gain loss, improve the stability factor
in the low frequency band by adding a short stub to
compensate the amplifier gain in this range, reduce the input
reflection and flatten the gain performance over the operating
Γ Circle bandwidth. To ensure an accurate performance, all the lumped
elements, bond wires, coaxial connections used in the design
fL have been modeled. Fig. 3 shows a photograph for the
designed PA (a) and the bonded die used in the design (b).

fL ZLopt
Zsopt

Die
Fig. 1 Extracted optimum source and load impedances in the frequency band IMN OMN
0.1 – 9 GHz based on load pull technique

IV. MATCHING NETWORK SYNTHESIS (a) (b)

After extracting the optimum source and load impedances Fig. 3 PA prototype on a test fixture (a) the bonded die used in the design (b)
during load pull technique, a design procedure for matching
networks has to be established in 3 steps. The first step is to V. SIMULATED AND MEASURED REULTS
conjugate matching the broadband extracted optimum load
impedances which in this case can be realized either as a A. Small signal performance
negative-image capacitive model [8] or as a table-based model Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 show measured (symbols) and simulated
to 50 Ohm with the goal of minimizing the power loss in the (solid lines) results of small signal gain, stability- (K-) factor
output network. A multi-section microstrip lines/ stubs based and input and output return losses in the frequency range from
on Rogers 4350B substrate material with permittivity εr of 1 MHz to 10 GHz, respectively. From Fig. 4, a linear gain of
3.48 and dielectric thickness of 0.51 mm. Fig. 2 shows the 9.2 dB with gain flatness ± 1 dB and K-factor of > 1.5 can be
optimum output power after load pull characterization, the observed in the bandwidth (0.35 – 8 GHz).
delivered power after de-embedding the output matching 20 10
network and the corresponding matching loss in the frequency S21 sim S21 meas
K sim K meas
band 0.1 – 9 GHz. Some other loss which is negligible is due
10 8
to the mismatch between the real and modeled load.

Stability factor (K)

60 0
0 6
Gain [dB]

-10 4
Output Power [dBm]

Matching Loss [dBm]

50 -2

-20 2

40 -4 -30 0
0 2 4 6 8 10
Popt after Loadpull f [GHz]
Pdel, OMN deembed.
PLoss, OMN Fig. 4 Measured (symbols) and simulated (solid lines) gain and stability
30 -6 factor (K)
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
f [GHz] An output return loss of < – 9 dB at 2 GHz could be
achieved as shown in Fig. 5 whereas the values below 2 GHz
Fig. 2 Frequency sweep for optimum, delivered output power and the
corresponding matching loss after de-embedding the output matching network
have to be improved. Because the designed PA has to be
combined to extend the power level and a driver stage has to
After realizing the output matching network (OMN), load be added at the input to increase the overall gain, no
pull characterization has been repeated in order to optimize impedance transformer is required to transform the optimum
the overall performance from the source side. This step leads

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source impedance to 50 Ohm. However, both simulations and frequency. However, a Max. Pout of > 38 dBm and PAE
measurements are found to be close to each other. of > 20 % can be observed.
0 40

Pout

Output Power [dBm], Gain [dB]

30
f = 6 GHz, VGS = -1.3 V
Return Loss [dB]

-10
VDS = 22 V VDS = 30 V
VDS = 24 V VDS = 35 V
20 VDS = 26 V VDS = 40 V
VDS = 28 V

-20 Gain

S11 sim 10
S11 meas
S22 sim
S22 meas
-30 0
0 2 4 6 8 10 15 20 25 30 35
f [GHz] Input Power [dBm]

Fig. 5 Measured (symbols) and simulated (solid lines) input and output return Fig. 7 Power sweep measurements for output power and power gain at 6 GHz
loss and different DC drain voltages

B. Power performance 50
Meas Poutmax Sim Poutmax
The power performance of the designed amplifier at 5 GHz, Meas PAEmax Sim PAEmax
VDS = 28 V is shown in Fig. 6. Measured P1dB and Pmax of
40
37.1 dBm and 38.2 dBm, respectively have been obtained. At PA Performance
1 dB gain compression, a power gain of 7.5 dB and max. PAE
of 22 % was achieved at this frequency. Good agreement
30
between measurements and simulations can be observed.
Power performance of the implemented PA has been tested at
6 GHz for different DC drain voltages as presented in Fig. 7.
20
The diagram shows the optimum performance either at
VDS = 26 V or VDS = 28 V which is close to the theoretical
operating point while all other DC points give worse
10
performance compared with the considered bias point. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
f [GHz]
40 40
f = 5 GHz Fig. 8 Measured (symbols) and simulated (solid lines) maximum output
power and PAE of the designed PA versus frequency

30 30 C. Linearity performance
Pout [dBm], Gain [dB]

Pout
In this section linearity performance based on single-tone
PAE (AM/AM, AM/PM) and two-tone (intercept point)
PAE [%]

20 20 characterizations have been done. At 8 GHz, AM/AM and

AM/PM distortions of ± 0.5 [dB/dB] and ± 2 [dB/deg], above
GP
1 dB compression can be observed as shown in Fig. 9. The
10 10 graph also shows good agreement between simulations and
measurements
To establish two-tone measurements, a multi-tone signal
0 0 generator (ESG) together with a spectrum analyser (PSA) from
15 20 25 30 35
Input Power [dBm]
Agilent has been used for this purpose. All measurements and
simulations are done at VDS = 28 V, IDS = 650 mA and
Fig. 6 Measured (symbols) and simulated (solid lines) power performance at fs = 100 kHz. Fig. 10 shows a PSA photograph for the two-
5 GHz tone measurements at f = 4 GHz and Pin = 23 dBm. The
Broadband power performance of the fabricated PA has photograph shows an IMD suppression of − 41 dBc and
been measured over the operating bandwidth (0.35 – 8 GHz). fundamental power of 29.3 dBm resulting in an OIP3 of
The measured results are almost close to the simulations ≈ 49 dBm.
except for some discrepancies in Max. PAE performance at Broadband linearity performance based on two-tone
4 GHz which may be due to model non-accuracy at this technique at 100 kHz frequency spacing has been
accomplished up to 6 GHz (ESG frequency limit) and the
extracted second- and third- order intercept points (OIP2,

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OIP3) have been constellated together with the corresponding
simulations as shown in Fig. 11. The designed PA shows high
linearity performance in the desired bandwidth resulting in an
OIP3 and OIP2 of greater than 49 dBm and 67 dBm,
respectively.
1 8
≥ 20 %. Linearity based on single-tone (AM/AM, AM/PM) and
two-tone characterizations have been performed, too. Max.
AM/AM and AM/PM distortions of ± 0.5 [dB/dB] and
± 2 [dB/deg] at 8 GHz can be observed. Broadband OIP3 and
OIP2 with frequency spacing of 100 kHz were found to be
49 dBm and 67 dBm, respectively. All the measurements were
reported at 28 V and compared with simulations. Excellent
agreement has been achieved.
80

AM/PM [dB/deg]
0 4
AM/AM [dB/dB]

Output Intercept Point [dBm]

70

-1 0 60

f = 8 GHz
AM/AMsim AM/AMmeas 50
AM/PMsim AM/PMmeas
-2 -4
10 20 30 40
Input Power [dBm]
OIP3meas OIP3sim
OIP2meas OIP2sim
Fig. 9 Measured (lines with symbols) and simulated (solid lines) AM/AM
and AM/PM conversions at 8 GHz 30
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
f [GHz]
Fig. 11 Measured (symbols) and simulated (solid lines) linearity performance
at f = 3 GHz and fs = 100 kHz

Fig. 10 PSA photograph of two-tone measurements at Pin = 23 dBm,
f = 4 GHz and fs = 100 kHz
VI. CONCLUSIONS
This paper presented a high power, ultra broadband, linear
power amplifier based on GaN HEMT die. Load pull
characterization, 3 D simulations and model developing for
lumped elements, bond wires and coaxial connectors have
been considered, resulting in a very good performance. Over a
multi octave bandwidth (0.35 – 8 GHz) the designed amplifier
has exhibited gain of 9 ± 1 dB, 1 dB Pout of 5 W and PAE of
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