A 0.2-6GHz Linearized Darlington-cascode broadband power amplifier

Shanwen Hu; Shu Yu; Yunqing Hu; Zixuan Wang; Bo Zhou; Zhikuang Cai; Yufeng Guo

doi:10.1587/elex.15.20180298

This article has now been updated. Please use the final version.

A 0.2-6GHz Linearized Darlington-cascode broadband power amplifier

Shanwen Hu, Shu Yu, Yunqing Hu, Zixuan Wang, Bo Zhou, Zhikuang Cai, Yufeng Guo

Author information

Shanwen Hu
College of Electronic and Optical Engineering & College of Microelectronics, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications
National and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of RF Integration and Micro-Assembly Technology, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications
Shu Yu
College of Electronic and Optical Engineering & College of Microelectronics, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications
National and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of RF Integration and Micro-Assembly Technology, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications
Yunqing Hu
College of Electronic and Optical Engineering & College of Microelectronics, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications
National and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of RF Integration and Micro-Assembly Technology, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications
Zixuan Wang
College of Electronic and Optical Engineering & College of Microelectronics, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications
National and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of RF Integration and Micro-Assembly Technology, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications
Bo Zhou
College of Electronic and Optical Engineering & College of Microelectronics, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications
Zhikuang Cai
College of Electronic and Optical Engineering & College of Microelectronics, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications
National and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of RF Integration and Micro-Assembly Technology, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications
Yufeng Guo
College of Electronic and Optical Engineering & College of Microelectronics, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications
National and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of RF Integration and Micro-Assembly Technology, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications

Keywords: power amplifier, linearizer, predistortion, Darlington-cascode

JOURNAL FREE ACCESS Advance online publication

Article ID: 15.20180298

DOI https://doi.org/10.1587/elex.15.20180298

The final version of this article is now available: Vol. 15 (2018), No. 8 pp. 20180298-20180298

Details

Abstract

A pre-distortion linearized Darlington cascode power amplifier cell is explored for broadband amplifier implementation, with additional inclusion of a RLC peaking network at the base terminal of the cascode transistor, and a RC feedback network at the input Darlington transistor. The RLC peaking network optimizes bandwidth and large signal power gain. The RC feedback network simplifies the design of broadband matching for the input Darlington pair. Most importantly, an optimization method of the input Darlington transistor biased at saturation mode is proposed to function as a predistortion linearizer, which can compensate for gain compression and phase deviation effects of the following cascode power stage. With this compensation technique, the proposed broadband PA achieves higher OIP3 than the conventional Darlington cascode amplifier, resulting in a 5dB improvement of OIP3 at 6GHz. A P1dB up to 27dBm is achieved by this broadband power amplifier with a 0.27mm² InGaP/GaAs HBT chip die.

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