Design of class-E GaN HEMT power amplifier using elliptic low pass matching network with 86% efficiency

In this paper, a highly efficient prototype of Gallium Nitride high electron mobility transistor (GaN HEMT) power amplifier using elliptic low pass filter output network is proposed, fabricated and measured. A fifth-order elliptic low-pass filter network is designed and implemented for the output matching, which provides optimized fundamental and harmonic impedances. Simulation and experimental results show that a Class-E PA is realized from 2.7 to 2.9 GHz with 10-W (40 dBm) output power, 10 dB gain and a measured efficiency of 86%, which is the highest reported today for such a frequency band and output power.