Broadband High Efficiency Class-F RF Power Amplifier

The RF power amplifier is a crucial component in the modern telecommunication system, and it is also the component which consumes the largest portion of energy in the system. With the rapid development of wireless telecommunication techniques, the power consumption of the RF power amplifier has become more and more significant. Therefore, to reduce the power budget and improve the efficiency of the amplifier is an important topic in the future. This thesis aims to focus on the whole family of Class-F RF power amplifiers and present the best performance of the Class-F topology. The family of Class-F amplifiers includes the Conventional mode RF power amplifier and Conventional mode RF inverse power amplifier, the Continuous mode RF power amplifier, and the Continuous mode RF inverse power amplifier. The main concern performance index is the efficiency of the amplifier. Therefore, the other performance will not be considered too much during the amplifier design. The first step of the methodology is to review the whole family of Class-F theory to clear the difference between the inverse and the non-inverse amplifier and the difference between the conventional mode and continuous mode. Second step, we did plenty of investigation and research to figure out the proper topologies of the amplifier and set a desired objective for the final amplifier design. The third step, build the ideal amplifiers with the ADS software and indicate the highest efficiency while maintaining the smooth efficiency within the bandwidth. Finally, transfer the best ideal amplifier mode to the real amplifier, and fabricate this amplifier mode to evaluate with the real test environment. The result of the thesis show that the best amplifier mode is the Continuous mode RF inverse power amplifier. This amplifier mode can maintain maximum efficiency and smooth within the bandwidth. Therefore, this amplifier mode is selected to fabricated and evaluated. This amplifier mode has 68%-78% efficiency with the ideal topology, and it has 65%-72%efficiency in the real amplifier. The bandwidth is from 1.5GHz to 2.0GHz. The fundamental frequency is 1.75GHz. The transducer gain is larger than 10dB within the entire bandwidth. The output power is around 40dBm. These results are satisfied the desired objective.