Design of an 87% Fractional Bandwidth Doherty Power Amplifier Supported by a Simplified Bandwidth Estimation Method

This paper presents a novel technique for the design of broadband Doherty power amplifiers (DPAs), supported by a simplified approach for the initial bandwidth estimation that requires linear simulations only. The equivalent impedance of the Doherty inverter is determined by the value of the output capacitance of the power device, and the Doherty combiner is designed following this initial choice and using a microstrip network. A GaN-based single-input DPA designed adopting this method exhibits, on a state-of-the-art bandwidth of 87% (1.5-3.8 GHz), a measured output power of around 20 W with 6 dB back-off efficiency between 33% and 55%, with a gain higher than 10 dB. System-level measurements prove the linearizability of the designed Doherty amplifier when a modulated signal is applied.