Design of class F power amplifier for 2.4ghz using third harmonics

Abstract

Historically, travelling wave tube amplifier (TWTA) has been a common type of Microwave amplifier used commonly in terrestrial and space application due to their high efficiency and power handling capacity. However due to their bulky nature and also being very expensive, it is difficult to use them commercially in a large scale. Inspired by the advantage such as very less development cost, minimum supply voltage, gradual degradation and numerous commercial applications, Solid State Power Amplifier (SSPA) has been the replacement to vacuum tube Technology. The efficiency of the amplifier is one of the most important task in the microwave engineering research. An important figure of merit, power-added efficiency (PAE), is the main focus. Hence in this paper, class F Power amplifier is designed for 2.4GHz frequency. Class F Amplifier is also called as wave shaping amplifier since the harmonics generated helps the amplification process. The class f PA is biased nearer to the class B amplifier (close cut-off area) so the transistor can move back and forth rapidly to produce the harmonics. The efficiency of class F amplifier depends on how many harmonics are used for the amplification process. Here, the amplification process is performed up to the third harmonics which provides 41.606 dBm output power with 27dBm input power. Also a gain of more than 20.277dBm is achieved when the input given is 27dBm. Several other results like reflection Coefficient and transmission coefficient simulations has also been provided with the power added efficiency (PAE) of 75.402 achieved has also been simulated.