3.3 GHz Doherty Power Amplifier having a High-Efficiency at 9 dB Back-Off Based on Outphasing Load Networks

In this paper, a Doherty power amplifier based on an outphasing load network was proposed to have a high efficiency at a back-off of 9 dB. The proposed Doherty power amplifier was designed and experimentally verified at a frequency of 3.3 GHz. The load impedances of the carrier and peaking amplifiers to the combining node were designed to have a complex conjugate relationship based on the outphasing load network. Therefore, the back-off output power for the efficiency peak could be extended to 9 dB by quadrupling the load impedance modulation of the carrier amplifier. A 6 W GaN HEMT (CGH40006P) from Wolfspeed was used to design both the carrier and the peaking amplifiers. The implemented Doherty power amplifier was measured at 3.3 GHz frequency. Drain efficiencies of 76.9 % at the maximum output power of 42.3 dBm and 59.6 % at the 9 dB back-off output power of 33.3 dBm with 11.0 dB power gain were achieved.