CW and Modulated Input Second Harmonic Injection for Efficiency Enhancement in Broadband Power Amplifiers

The second-harmonic input impedance plays a critical role on the performance of GaN power amplifiers. In a recent paper, a drain efficiency enhancement for a continuous-mode power amplifiers was reported to be achieved using active broadband second-harmonic injection at the PA input. In this paper, the strategy for selecting the second-harmonic input impedance and the necessity for using active injection in such broadband PAs are discussed in detail. Additionally, the methodology for designing an embedded broadband diplexer in the input matching network is reported. Finally, the importance of the phase of the second-harmonic signal injected is demonstrated for both CW and modulated signals using both simulation and measurement, respectively. The effectiveness of the CW and modulated active second-harmonic injection methodology presented here are validated by previously reported measurements that demonstrated an average drain efficiency improvement of 9.4% from 1.3 to 2.4 GHz for CW signals and of 9.7% at 2 GHz for a frequency-modulated 30 MHz chirp radar signal.