K-Band GaAs MMIC Doherty Power Amplifier for Microwave Radio With Optimized Driver

In this paper, a Doherty power amplifier for K-band point-to-point microwave radio, developed in TriQuint GaAs um PWR pHEMT monolithic technology, is presented. Highly efficient driver stages on both the main and auxiliary branches have been designed and optimized to boost gain with minimal impact on power-added efficiency. The selected architecture enables a modular combination to reach higher power levels. Matching network structures have been designed, according to simple equivalent circuit approaches, to obtain the desired 10% fractional bandwidth. The fabricated power amplifier (PA) exhibits, at 24 GHz in continuous-wave conditions, an output power of 30.9 dBm, with a power-added efficiency of 38% at saturation and 20% at 6 dB of output power back-off, together with a gain of 12.5 dB. System-level characterization at 24 GHz, in very demanding conditions, with a 28-MHz channel 7.5-dB peak-to-average ratio modulated signal, showed full compliance with the standard emission mask, adopting a simple predistorter, with average output power of 23.5 dBm, and average efficiency above 14%. The measured performance favorably compare with other academic and commercial K-band PAs for similar applications