Recent Developments of Dual-Band Doherty Power Amplifiers for Upcoming Mobile Communications Systems

Power amplifiers in modern and future communications should be able to handle different modulation standards at different frequency bands, and in addition, to be compatible with the previous generations. This paper reviews the recent design techniques that have been used to operate dual-band amplifiers and in particular the Doherty amplifiers. Special attention is focused on the design methodologies used for power splitters, phase compensation networks, impedance inverter networks and impedance transformer networks of such power amplifier. The most important materials of the dual-band Doherty amplifier are highlighted and surveyed. The main problems and challenges covering dual-band design concepts are presented and discussed. In addition, improvement techniques to enhance such operations are also exploited. The study shows that the transistor parasitic has a great impact in the design of a dual-band amplifier, and reduction of the transforming ratio of the inverter simplifies the dual-band design. The offset line can be functionally replaced by a Π-network in dual-band design rather than T-network