A Comprehensive Harmonic Analysis of Current-Mode Power Amplifiers

Chiara Ramella, Paolo Colantonio and Marco Pirola
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Chiara Ramella: Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Turin, Italy
Paolo Colantonio: Microwave Engineering Center for Space Applications (MECSA), 00133 Rome, Italy
Marco Pirola: Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Politecnico di Torino, 10129 Turin, Italy

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 21, 1-23

Abstract: This work presents a comprehensive theoretical analysis of current-mode power amplifiers as a function of input power for different biasing classes under the common simplifying assumption of constant transconductance and hard current cut-off/saturation. Typically, the theoretical analysis of power amplifier performance and behavior are carried out only at maximum output power. However, to achieve high data-rates, modern telecommunication systems adopt signals characterized by a very high peak-to-average power ratio, thus it is useful to analyze the power amplifier behavior as a function of power back-off. Moreover, in many cases, to enhance the efficiency and/or to apply harmonic shaping techniques, a clipped drain-source current, which approaches a square wave, is required. The classical analysis can be extended to low power levels only under the assumption of power-independent conduction angle, which is true only for class-A and class-B amplifiers, and does not take into account possible waveform clipping at maximum current. This work presents a complete theoretical Fourier analysis of FET-based power amplifiers as a function of quiescent drain-source current at any input power level and accounting for the clipped current case, up to the square-wave limit, reorganizing and completing the material that can be found in classical textbooks in the field.

Keywords: high-frequency power amplifiers; current-mode power amplifiers; harmonic analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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