Broadband Solid-State LINC Power Amplifier

As the wireless industry in general moves toward the elusive goal of the true software defined radio, it is inevitable that one of the main stumbling blocks, still a barrier to real software defined radio, is in the power amplifier of the transmitter section. Truly one of the most remarkable achievements in modern-day communications technology has been the advent of linearization of power amplifiers. It remains a difficult task to design a power amplifier that simultaneously provides very wide bandwidth, high gain, high linearity, and high efficiency. These power amplifier design goals are usually only reached in a reasonable trade space in which one or more goals are traded at the expense of one or more other goals, depending on the end-use requirements. GaN based PA technology has the promise of maximizing bandwidth*Gain, linearity and efficiency with some linearization assist electronics. This proposal seeks to develop high-efficiency, GaN based power amplifier technology for handling arbitrary band and bandwidth signals that exhibit various envelope modulation characteristics.