S-Band Class-C-F Power Amplifier with 2nd Harmonic Control at the Input

Power amplifiers (PAs) are the most power-consuming devices in a transmitter. Their performance in efficiency is crucial to the efficiency of the whole system. Therefore, the issue of high efficiency PA has remained hot over the years. This paper presents an approach to design an S-band single stage class-F PA biased in class-C condition. Through the manipulation of the 2nd harmonic at the input, shaping the voltage waveform at the gate node, a class-F PA with proper output matching network (OMN) is realized. The proposed class-C-F PA achieved 60% drain efficiency (DE) and 36.3 dBm of output power around the 3 dB compression point. The methodology of taking the input non-linearity into consideration is also presented. Its feasibility has been verified through both the design and measurements.