Continuous-Mode Hybrid Asymmetrical Load- Modulated Balanced Amplifier With Three-Way Modulation and Multi-Band Reconfigurability

This article introduces a novel high-order load modulation power amplifier (PA) architecture, i.e., continuous-mode hybrid asymmetric load modulated balanced amplifier (H-ALMBA). The two sub-amplifiers (BA1 and BA2) of the balanced topology in an LMBA are set as peaking amplifiers with different thresholds when cooperating with the control amplifier (CA) as the carrier, forming a hybrid load modulation behavior between Doherty and ALMBA. Compared to standard LMBA, the proposed H-ALMBA has a three-way load modulation with CA, BA1 and BA2 through proper amplitude control and phase alignment. Thus, this new mode offers extended power back-off range and enhanced back-off efficiency without suffering from difficulty and complexity in wideband design as imposed on three-way Doherty PAs. Based on comprehensive theoretical derivation and analysis, the proposed H-ALMBA is designed and implemented using commercial GaN transistors and wideband quadrature couplers. Moreover, the continuous-mode matching is applied to the carrier amplifier achieving a maximized wideband efficiency at power back-off. This is the first time that continuous mode and ALMBA have been used in combination, and very satisfactory results have been achieved, exhibiting the highest 10-dB OBO drain efficiency (DE) ever reported for wideband load-modulation PAs. The developed prototype experimentally demonstrates wide bandwidth from 1.7 - 3.0 GHz. The measurement exhibits an efficiency of 63 - 81\% at peak output power, 51 - 62\% for 5-dB OBO, and 50 - 66\% for 10-dB OBO within the design bandwidth. When stimulated by a 20-MHz long term evolution (LTE) signal with 10.5-dB peak to average power ratio (PAPR), a 50 - 55\% average efficiency is measured over the entire bandwidth at an average output power around 32 dBm.