An Efficient Linearized Octave-Bandwidth Power Amplifier for Carrier Aggregation

In this paper, a single-stage octave bandwidth power amplifier from 2–4GHz with greater than 10W output power and drain efficiency ranging from 55–70% is presented. Input and output networks are synthesized to match the fundamental, 2nd and 3rd harmonics for efficiency, based on load-pull simulations. The amplifier performance is characterized over the entire band for a 20-MHz LTE signal with a PAPR of 8 dB, demonstrating an average efficiency greater than 25% with a normalized mean square error (NSMR) below -28 dB. Two 20-MHz signals are then simultaneously amplified with a spacing that varies from 200MHz to 1GHz, with resulting average efficiencies over 28%.