24 to 28 GHz MMIC CLASS-J GaAs pHEMT POWER AMPLIFIER WITH NONFOSTER MATCHING FOR 5G COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

Summary

This paper presents 24 to 28 GHz MMIC (monolithic microwave integrated circuit) class-J GaAs pHEMT
power amplifier with non-Foster matching for 5G communication systems. The power amplifier (PA) was
designed with Keysight Advanced Design System (ADS) Software based on WIN semiconductor P10-10 GaAs
pHEMT process technology with periphery of 150 µm and biased with drain supply voltage of 3 V at quiescent
drain-to-source current of 3 mA. The transistors in the non-Foster circuit (NFC) were biased with drain supply
voltage of 2 V with quiescent drain-to- source current of 2 mA. This puts the PA to NFC drain supply voltage
scaling ratio at 1.5:1. The NFC produces the effective negative capacitance required to cancel out the power
transistor input parasitic capacitance across the bandwidth in order to enhance PA efficiency, output power
and gain. The PA has 4 GHz bandwidth as it operates from 24 to 28 GHz with center frequency of 26 GHz
covering the proposed higher 5G frequency band of 24.5 to 27.5 GHz. Simulation results indicate that the PA
with NFC has 36% drain efficiency, 26% power added efficiency (PAE), 16.2 dBm output power and
transducer power gain of 5.2 dB at centre frequency of 26 GHz while the PA without NFC has 34% drain
efficiency, 25% PAE, 15.6 dBm and transducer power gain of 4.6 dB at centre frequency of 26 GHz. The
results indicate that the performance of the PA with NFC in terms of drain efficiency, power added efficiency,
output power and transducer power gain from 24 to 28 GHz at centre frequency of 26 GHz increased by 2%,
1%, 0.6dBm and 0.6 dB respectively. This makes the PA suitable for application at higher 5G frequency band.

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