Design of a Compact 2-6 GHz High-Efficiency and High-Gain GaN Power Amplifier

In this paper, a novel wideband power amplifier (PA) operating in the 2-6 GHz frequency range is presented. The proposed PA design utilizes a combination technique consisting of a distributed equalization technique, multiplexing the power supply network and matching network technique, an LR dissipative structure, and an RC stability network technique to achieve significant bandwidth while maintaining superior gain flatness, high efficiency, high gain, and compact size. For verification, a three-stage PA using the combination technique is designed and implemented in a 0.25 μm GaN high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) process. The fabricated prototype demonstrates a saturated output power of 4 W, a power gain of 21 dB, a gain flatness of ±0.6 dB, a power-added efficiency of 39-46%, and a fractional bandwidth of 100% under the operating conditions of drain voltage 28 V (continuous wave) and gate voltage -2.6 V. Moreover, the chip occupies a compact size of only 2.51 mm × 1.97 mm.

Transmit Beamforming Design Based on Multi-Receiver Power Suppression for STAR Digital Array

The simultaneous transmit and receive (STAR) array system provides higher radiation gain and data rate compared to traditional radio system. Because of the various mutual couplings between each pair of transmit and receive elements, it is a great challenge to suppress the incident self-interference power at multiple receive elements, which is usually much higher than the desired signal of interest (SoI) power and causes the saturation of receive links and the distortion of the digital SoI. In this paper, we propose an optimized method for transmit beamforming based on radiation power constraints and transmit power control. Through adaptive transmit beamforming, high isolation between the transmit array and each receive link is achieved, minimizing the self-interference power at each receiving element. This method effectively reduces the self-interference power, avoiding distortion of the SoI digital signal caused by limited-bit analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). Simulation results demonstrate that this optimized transmit beamforming method can achieve more than 100 dB effective isotropic isolation (EII) on a 32-element two-dimensional phased array designed in HFSS, reducing the maximum incident self-interference power at the receive channels by approximately 35 dB, while effectively controlling the attenuation of the transmit gain. We also present the advantages in receive subarray isolation and lower ADCs digits under the transmit ABF method.

A 77 GHz Power Amplifier with 19.1 dBm Peak Output Power in 130 nm SiGe Process

This article reports a two-stage differential structure power amplifier based on a 130 nm SiGe process operating at 77 GHz. By introducing a tunable capacitor for amplitude and phase balance at the center tap of the secondary coil of the traditional Marchand balun, the balun achieves amplitude imbalance less than 0.5 dB and phase imbalance less than 1 degree within the operating frequency range of 70-85 GHz, which enables the power amplifier to exhibit comparable output power over a wide operating frequency band. The power amplifier, based on a designed 3-bit digital analog convertor (DAC)-controlled base bias current source, exhibits small signal gain fluctuation of less than 5 dB and saturation output power fluctuation of less than 2 dB near the 80 GHz frequency point when the ambient temperature varies in the range of -40 °C to 125 °C. Benefiting from the aforementioned design, the tested single-path differential power amplifier exhibits a small signal gain exceeding 16 dB, a saturation output power exceeding 18 dBm, and a peak saturation output power of 19.1 dBm in the frequency band of 70-85 GHz.

Front-End Development for Radar Applications: A Focus on 24 GHz Transmitter Design

The proliferation of radar technology has given rise to a growing demand for advanced, high-performance transmitter front-ends operating in the 24 GHz frequency band. This paper presents a design analysis of a radio frequency (RF) transmitter (TX) front-end operated at a 24 GHz frequency and designed using 65 nm complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology for radar applications. The proposed TX front-end design includes the integration of an up-conversion mixer and power amplifier (PA). The up-conversion mixer is a Gilbert cell-based design that translates the 2.4 GHz intermediate frequency (IF) signal and 21.6 GHz local oscillator (LO) signal to the 24 GHz RF output signal. The mixer is designed with a novel technique that includes a duplex transconductance path (DTP) for enhancing the mixer's linearity. The DTP of the mixer includes a primary transconductance path (PTP) and a secondary transconductance path (STP). The PTP incorporates a common source (CS) amplifier, while the STP incorporates an improved cross-quad transconductor (ICQT). The integrated PA in the TX front-end is a class AB tunable two-stage PA that can be tuned with the help of varactors as a synchronous mode to increase the PA bandwidth or stagger mode to obtain a high gain. The PA is tuned to 24 GHz as a synchronous mode PA for the TX front-end operation. The proposed TX front-end showed an excellent output power of 11.7 dBm and dissipated 7.5 mW from a 1.2 V supply. In addition, the TX front-end achieved a power-added efficiency (PAE) of 47% and 1 dB compression point (OP1dB) of 10.5 dBm. In this case, the output power is 10.5 dBm higher than the linear portion of the response. The methodologies presented herein have the potential to advance the state of the art in 24 GHz radar technology, fostering innovations in fields such as autonomous vehicles, industrial automation, and remote sensing.

CS-GA-XGBoost-Based Model for a Radio-Frequency Power Amplifier under Different Temperatures

Machine learning methods, such as support vector regression (SVR) and gradient boosting, have been introduced into the modeling of power amplifiers and achieved good results. Among various machine learning algorithms, XGBoost has been proven to obtain high-precision models faster with specific parameters. Hyperparameters have a significant impact on the model performance. A traditional grid search for hyperparameters is time-consuming and labor-intensive and may not find the optimal parameters. To solve the problem of parameter searching, improve modeling accuracy, and accelerate modeling speed, this paper proposes a PA modeling method based on CS-GA-XGBoost. The cuckoo search (CS)-genetic algorithm (GA) integrates GA's crossover operator into CS, making full use of the strong global search ability of CS and the fast rate of convergence of GA so that the improved CS-GA can expand the size of the bird nest population and reduce the scope of the search, with a better optimization ability and faster rate of convergence. This paper validates the effectiveness of the proposed modeling method by using measured input and output data of 2.5-GHz-GaN class-E PA under different temperatures (-40 °C, 25 °C, and 125 °C) as examples. The experimental results show that compared to XGBoost, GA-XGBoost, and CS-XGBoost, the proposed CS-GA-XGBoost can improve the modeling accuracy by one order of magnitude or more and shorten the modeling time by one order of magnitude or more. In addition, compared with classic machine learning algorithms, including gradient boosting, random forest, and SVR, the proposed CS-GA-XGBoost can improve modeling accuracy by three orders of magnitude or more and shorten modeling time by two orders of magnitude, demonstrating the superiority of the algorithm in terms of modeling accuracy and speed. The CS-GA-XGBoost modeling method is expected to be introduced into the modeling of other devices/circuits in the radio-frequency/microwave field and achieve good results.

A State-of-the-Art Review on CMOS Radio Frequency Power Amplifiers for Wireless Communication Systems

Wireless communication systems have undergone significant development in recent years, particularly with the transition from fourth generation (4G) to fifth generation (5G). As the number of wireless devices and mobile data usage increase, there is a growing need for enhancements and upgrades to the current wireless communication systems. CMOS transceivers are increasingly being explored to meet the requirements of the latest wireless communication protocols and applications while achieving the goal of system-on-chip (SoC). The radio frequency power amplifier (RFPA) in a CMOS transmitter plays a crucial role in amplifying RF signals and transmitting them from the antenna. This state-of-the-art review paper presents a concise discussion of the performance metrics that are important for designing a CMOS PA, followed by an overview of the trending research on CMOS PA techniques that focuses on efficiency, linearity, and bandwidth enhancement.

Power Amplifier Design for Ultrasound Applications

A design analysis of the power amplifiers developed for ultrasound applications was conducted because ultrasound applications require different types of power amplifiers, which are one of the most critical electronic components in ultrasound systems. To generate acoustic signals using transducers, which are among the most important mechanical devices in ultrasound systems, an appropriate output voltage, current, or power signal must be produced by a power amplifier. Therefore, an appropriate design analysis of the power amplifier must be conducted to obtain the optimal performance from a transducer. In addition, because of new ultrasound research trends, such as ultrasound systems with other imaging modalities and wireless ultrasound systems, the selection of an appropriate power amplifier could improve the performance of an ultrasound system with other imaging and therapy modalities. This paper describes the design parameters of a power amplifier, including the gain, bandwidth, harmonic distortion, and efficiency. Each power amplifier has specific applications and limitations. Therefore, this review will assist design engineers and ultrasound researchers who need to develop or use power amplifiers in ultrasound applications.

A 5.8 GHz 1.8 V +20 dBm 32.5% PAE Power Amplifier for a Short-Range Over-the-Air WPT Application

This paper presents a 5.8 GHz differential cascode power amplifier for an over-the-air wireless power transfer application. Over-the-air wireless power transfer provides a variety of benefits in several applications such as the Internet of Things and medical implantation applications. The proposed PA features two fully differentially active stages with a custom-designed transformer to provide a single-ended output. The custom-made transformer shows a high quality factor, as high as 11.6 and 11.2 for the primary and secondary sides at 5.8 GHz. Fabricated using a standard 180 nm CMOS process, the amplifier achieves input and output matching of -14.7 dB and -29.7 dB, respectively. To achieve a high power level and efficiency, accurate optimization through power matching, Power Added Efficiency (PAE), and the design of the transformer are carried out while the supply voltage is limited to 1.8 V. Measurement results show a 20 dBm output power with a PAE as high as 32.5%, which makes the PA suitable for application, and it can be implanted while arrayed with various antenna arrays. Finally, a FOM is introduced to compare the performance of the work with similar works in the literature.

160 GHz D-Band Low-Noise Amplifier and Power Amplifier for Radar-Based Contactless Vital-Signs-Monitoring Systems

This paper presents a 160 GHz, D-band, low-noise amplifier (LNA) and a D-band power amplifier (PA) implemented in the Global Foundries 22 nm CMOS FDSOI. The two designs are used for the contactless monitoring of vital signs in the D-band. The LNA is based on multiple stages of a cascode amplifier topology with a common source topology adopted as the input and output stages. The input stage of the LNA is designed for simultaneous input and output matching, while the inter-stage-matching networks are designed for maximizing the voltage swing. The LNA achieved a maximum gain of 17 dB at 163 GHz. The input return loss was quite poor in the 157-166 GHz frequency band. The -3 dB gain bandwidth corresponded to 157-166 GHz. The measured noise figure was between 7.6 dB and 8 dB within the -3 dB gain bandwidth. The power amplifier achieved an output 1 dB compression point of 6.8 dBm at 159.75 GHz. The measured power consumptions of the LNA and the PA were 28.8 mW and 10.8 mW, respectively.

Automatic Piecewise Extreme Learning Machine-Based Model for S-Parameters of RF Power Amplifier

This paper presents an automatic piecewise (Auto-PW) extreme learning machine (ELM) method for S-parameters modeling radio-frequency (RF) power amplifiers (PAs). A strategy based on splitting regions at the changing points of concave-convex characteristics is proposed, where each region adopts a piecewise ELM model. The verification is carried out with S-parameters measured on a 2.2-6.5 GHz complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) PA. Compared to the long-short term memory (LSTM), support vector regression (SVR), and conventional ELM modeling methods, the proposed method performs excellently. For example, the modeling speed is two orders of magnitude faster than SVR and LSTM, and the modeling accuracy is more than one order of magnitude higher than ELM.

BPNN-Based Behavioral Modeling of the S-Parameter Variation Characteristics of PAs with Frequency at Different Temperatures

To address the issue of frequency nonlinearity modeling of RF PAs, which is rarely seen in the literature, a BPNN is applied to model the frequency nonlinearity of RF PAs in this paper. The BPNN is used to model the frequency nonlinearity of the RF PA, based on the actual measured S-parameter data at different ambient temperatures. The modeling results show that BPNN shows the advantage of a high accuracy in modeling the frequency nonlinearity of RF PAs. It is expected that a BPNN will also show the advantages of a high accuracy in the modeling process of other RF devices or circuits.

A Comparison of Surrogate Behavioral Models for Power Amplifier Linearization under High Sparse Data

A good approximation to power amplifier (PA) behavioral modeling requires precise baseband models to mitigate nonlinearities. Since digital predistortion (DPD) is used to provide the PA linearization, a framework is necessary to validate the modeling figures of merit support under signal conditioning and transmission restrictions. A field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based testbed is developed to measure the wide-band PA behavior using a single-carrier 64-quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) multiplexed by orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) based on long-term evolution (LTE) as a stimulus, with different bandwidths signals. In the search to provide a heuristic target approach modeling, this paper introduces a feature extraction concept to find an appropriate complexity solution considering the high sparse data issue in amplitude to amplitude (AM-AM) and amplitude to phase AM-PM models extraction, whose penalties are associated with overfitting and hardware complexity in resulting functions. Thus, experimental results highlight the model performance for a high sparse data regime and are compared with a regression tree (RT), random forest (RF), and cubic-spline (CS) model accuracy capabilities for the signal conditioning to show a reliable validation, low-complexity, according to the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR), complementary cumulative distribution function (CCDF), coefficients extraction, normalized mean square error (NMSE), and execution time figures of merit. The presented models provide a comparison with original data that aid to compare the dimension and robustness for each surrogate model where (i) machine learning (ML)-based and (ii) CS interpolate-based where high sparse data are present, NMSE between the CS interpolated based are also compared to demonstrate the efficacy in the prediction methods with lower convergence times and complexities.

Agnostic Envelope Linearization of Dynamically Supplied Power Amplifiers for Mobile Terminals

This paper presents an envelope linearization technique to compensate for the nonlinear distortion of envelope tracking (ET) power amplifiers (PAs) for 5G new radio (NR) mobile terminals. The proposed envelope optimization (EOPT) method is agnostic of the nonlinear distortion generated in the envelope supply path and can compensate for the nonlinear distortion at the ET PA output without the need to monitor the output at the envelope tracking modulator (ETM). The linearization system in the envelope path is based on the envelope generalized memory polynomial (EGMP) behavioral model. Since the ETM output is not available, an iterative nonlinear least squares solution inspired in the deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) algorithm is proposed to extract the coefficients of the EGMP model. The EOPT method is validated on a system-on-chip (SoC) ET PA board designed for mobile terminal applications. Experimental results show the suitability of the proposed method to guarantee the linearity requirements (i.e., adjacent channel power ratio below −36 dBc) with 16.8% of power efficiency when operating the ET PA with 5G new radio test signals of 60 MHz bandwidth operating at 2.55 GHz (band 7). The linearization performance of the proposed EOPT method is comparable to the envelope leakage cancellation (ELC) approach (but saving the need for an analog to digital converter to monitor the ETM output), and can outperform a conventional I-Q digital predistorter based on the generalized memory polynomial (GMP) behavioral model.

Amplification and Manipulation of Nonlinear Electromagnetic Waves and Enhanced Nonreciprocity using Transmissive Space-Time-Coding Metasurface

A novel amplifier-based transmissive space-time-coding metasurface is presented to realize strongly nonlinear controls of electromagnetic (EM) waves in both space and frequency domains, which can manipulate the propagation directions and adjust enhancements of nonlinear harmonic waves and break the Lorenz reciprocity due to the nonreciprocity of unilateral power amplifiers. By cascading the power amplifier between patches placed on two sides of the metasurface, the metasurface can transmit the spatial EM waves in the forward direction while blocking it in the backward direction. Two status of power amplifier biased at the standard working voltage and zero voltage are represented as codes "1" and "0," respectively. By periodically setting adequate code sequences and proportions in the temporal dimension, according to the space-time coding strategy, the amplitudes and phases of the harmonic transmission coefficients can be adjusted in a programmable way. A metasurface prototype is fabricated and measured in the microwave frequency to validate the concept and feasibility. The experimental results show good agreement with the theoretical predictions and numerical simulations. The proposed metasurface can achieve controllable harmonic power enhancements for flexibly configuring the power intensities in space, which enlarge and manipulate the quality of transmitting signals.

A Crest Factor Reduction Technique for LTE Signals with Target Relaxation in Power Amplifier Linearization

The signal conditioning treatment to achieve good relation of power with radio-frequency (RF) conversion in conventional transceiver systems require precise baseband models. A developed framework is built to provide a demonstration of the modeling figures of merit with orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) support under signal conditioning and transmission restrictions to waveforms with high peak to average power ratio (PAPR) in practical applications. Therefore, peak and average power levels have to be limited to correct high PAPR for a better suited correction power from the amplifier that can lead to compression or clipping in the signal of interest. This work presents an alternative joint crest factor reduction (CFR) algorithm to correct the performance of PAPR. A real-time field-programmable gate array (FPGA) testbed is developed to characterize and measure the behavior of an amplifier using a single-carrier 64–QAM OFDM based on long-term evolution (LTE) downlink at 2.40 GHz as stimulus, across wide modulation bandwidths. The results demonstrate that the CFR accuracy capabilities for the signal conditioning show a reliable clipping reduction to give a smooth version of the clipping signal and provide a factor of correction for the unwanted out-of-band emission validated according to the adjacent channel power ratio (ACPR), PAPR, peak power, complementary cumulative distribution function (CCDF), and error vector magnitude (EVM) figures of merit.

Comparison of Feature Selection Techniques for Power Amplifier Behavioral Modeling and Digital Predistortion Linearization

The power amplifier (PA) is the most critical subsystem in terms of linearity and power efficiency. Digital predistortion (DPD) is commonly used to mitigate nonlinearities while the PA operates at levels close to saturation, where the device presents its highest power efficiency. Since the DPD is generally based on Volterra series models, its number of coefficients is high, producing ill-conditioned and over-fitted estimations. Recently, a plethora of techniques have been independently proposed for reducing their dimensionality. This paper is devoted to presenting a fair benchmark of the most relevant order reduction techniques present in the literature categorized by the following: (i) greedy pursuits, including Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (OMP), Doubly Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (DOMP), Subspace Pursuit (SP) and Random Forest (RF); (ii) regularization techniques, including ridge regression and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO); (iii) heuristic local search methods, including hill climbing (HC) and dynamic model sizing (DMS); and (iv) global probabilistic optimization algorithms, including simulated annealing (SA), genetic algorithms (GA) and adaptive Lipschitz optimization (adaLIPO). The comparison is carried out with modeling and linearization performance and in terms of runtime. The results show that greedy pursuits, particularly the DOMP, provide the best trade-off between execution time and linearization robustness against dimensionality reduction.

A New Approach to Power Efficiency Improvement of Ultrasonic Transmitters via a Dynamic Bias Technique

To obtain a high-quality signal from an ultrasound system through the transmitter, it is necessary to achieve an appropriate operating point of the power amplifier in the ultrasonic transmitter by applying high static bias voltage. However, the power amplifier needs to be operated at low bias voltage, because a power amplifier operating at high bias voltage may consume a large amount of power and increase the temperature of the active devices, worsening the signal characteristics of the ultrasound systems. Therefore, we propose a new method of increasing the bias voltage for a specific period to solve this problem by reducing the output signal distortion of the power amplifier and decreasing the load on the active device. To compare the performance of the proposed method, we measured and compared the signals of the amplifier with the proposed technique and the amplifier only. Notably, improvement was achieved with 11.1% of the power added efficiency and 3.23% of the total harmonic distortion (THD). Additionally, the echo signal generated by the ultrasonic transducer was improved by 2.73 dB of amplitude and 0.028% of THD under the conditions of an input signal of 10 mW. Therefore, the proposed method could be useful for improving ultrasonic transmitter performance using the developed technique.

Novel Bandwidth Expander Supported Power Amplifier for Wideband Ultrasound Transducer Devices

Ultrasound transducer devices have their own frequency ranges, depending on the applications and specifications, due to penetration depth, sensitivity, and image resolution. For imaging applications, in particular, the transducer devices are preferable to have a wide bandwidth due to the specific information generated by the tissue or blood vessel structures. To support these ultrasound transducer devices, ultrasound power amplifier hardware with a wide bandwidth can improve the transducer performance. Therefore, we developed a new bandwidth expander circuit using specially designed switching architectures to increase the power amplifier bandwidth. The measured bandwidth of the power amplifier with the help of the bandwidth expander circuit increased by 56.9%. In addition, the measured echo bandwidths of the 15-, 20-, and 25-MHz transducer devices were increased by 8.1%, 6.0%, and 9.8%, respectively, with the help of the designed bandwidth expander circuit. Therefore, the designed architecture could help an ultrasound system hardware with a wider bandwidth, thus supporting the use of different frequency ultrasound transducer devices with a single developed ultrasound system.

A High-Voltage and Low-Noise Power Amplifier for Driving Piezoelectric Stack Actuators

In this paper, based on the principles of general operational amplifiers, a high-voltage operational amplifier is developed. Considering the influences of piezoelectric stack actuators on the circuit, a novel structure using the high-voltage operational amplifier as a noninverting amplifier is proposed. Because of the simple circuit principles and the voltage feedback control structure, the proposed power amplifier has the advantages of low noise and small size, and it can be realized by discrete electric elements easily. In the application of precision positioning, a power amplifier using the proposed circuit principles for driving piezoelectric stack actuators is designed, simulated, and tested. The simulated results show that the proposed power amplifier could conform to the theory of the circuit. The experimental results show that the designed power amplifier conforms to the simulation, the bandwidth of the power amplifier is about 57 kHz, and the ripple of the power amplifier is less than 2 mV. Furthermore, the output of the proposed power amplifier maintains the same type of wave within in a large range of frequency, while the input is the sinusoidal or square wave, and the resolution of the mechanism which the power amplifier is applied in is about 4.5 nm. By selecting the critical electronic elements and using feedback control, the proposed circuit structure is able to realize a low-cost and high-performance power amplifier to drive piezoelectric stack actuators flexibly, which is the novel work of the paper.

A GaN HEMT Amplifier Design for Phased Array Radars and 5G New Radios

Power amplifiers applied in modern active electronically scanned array (AESA) radars and 5G radios should have similar features, especially in terms of phase distortion, which dramatically affects the spectral regrowth and, moreover, they are difficult to be compensated by predistortion algorithms. This paper presents a GaN-based power amplifier design with a reduced level of transmittance distortions, varying in time, without significantly worsening other key features such as output power, efficiency and gain. The test amplifier with GaN-on-Si high electron mobility transistors (HEMT) NPT2018 from MACOM provides more than 17 W of output power at the 62% PAE over a 1.0 GHz to 1.1 GHz frequency range. By applying a proposed design approach, it was possible to decrease phase changes on test pulses from 0.5° to 0.2° and amplitude variation from 0.8 dB to 0.2 dB during the pulse width of 40 µs and 40% duty cycle.

Compact 20-W GaN Internally Matched Power Amplifier for 2.5 GHz to 6 GHz Jammer Systems

In this paper, we demonstrate a compact 20-W GaN internally matched power amplifier for 2.5 to 6 GHz jammer systems which uses a high dielectric constant substrate, single-layer capacitors, and shunt/series resistors for low-Q matching and low-frequency stabilization. A GaN high-electron-mobility transistor (HEMT) CGH60030D bare die from Wolfspeed was used as an active device, and input/output matching circuits were implemented on two different substrates using a thin-film process, relative dielectric constants of which were 9.8 and 40, respectively. A series resistor of 2.1 Ω was chosen to minimize the high-frequency loss and obtain a flat gain response. For the output matching circuit, double λ/4 shorted stubs were used to supply the drain current and reduce the output impedance variation of the transistor between the low-frequency and high-frequency regions, which also made wideband matching feasible. Single-layer capacitors effectively helped reduce the size of the matching circuit. The fabricated GaN internally matched power amplifier showed a linear gain of about 10.2 dB, and had an output power of 43.3–43.9 dBm (21.4–24.5 W), a power-added efficiency of 33.4–49.7% and a power gain of 6.2–8.3 dB at the continuous-wave output power condition, from 2.5 to 6 GHz.

Wide Bandwidth Class-S Power Amplifiers for Ultrasonic Devices

Wide bandwidth ultrasonic devices are a necessity in high-resolution ultrasonic systems. Therefore, constant output voltages need to be produced across the wide bandwidths of a power amplifier. We present the first design of a wide bandwidth class-S power amplifier for ultrasonic devices. The −6 dB bandwidth of the developed class-S power amplifier was measured at 125.07% at 20 MHz, thus, offering a wide bandwidth for ultrasonic devices. Pulse-echo measurement is a performance measurement method used to evaluate the performance of ultrasonic transducers, components, or systems. The pulse-echo signals were obtained using an ultrasonic transducer with designed power amplifiers. In the pulse-echo measurements, time and frequency analyses were conducted to evaluate the bandwidth flatness of the power amplifiers. The frequency range of the ultrasonic transducer was measured and compared when using the developed class-S and commercial class-A power amplifiers with the same output voltages. The class-S power amplifiers had a relatively flat bandwidth (109.7 mV at 17 MHz, 112.0 mV at 20 MHz, and 109.5 mV at 23 MHz). When the commercial class-A power amplifier was evaluated under the same conditions, an uneven bandwidth was recorded (110.6 mV at 17 MHz, 111.5 mV at 20 MHz, and 85.0 mV at 23 MHz). Thus, we demonstrated that the designed class-S power amplifiers could prove useful for ultrasonic devices with a wide frequency range.

Towards a System for Tracking Drug Delivery Using Frequency Excited Gold Nanoparticles

Nanoparticle-based drugs are rapidly evolving to treat different conditions and have considerable potential. A new system based on the combination of electrical impedance tomography (EIT) imaging and a power amplifier with a RF coil has been developed to study the effect of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) when excited in the MHz frequency range. We show that samples including AuNPs have a temperature increase of 1-1.5 °C due to the presence of RF excitation at 13.56 MHz which provides a higher rate of change for solutions without AuNPs. They also show more than a 50% increase in conductivity in difference imaging as the result of this excitation. The change for samples without AuNPs is 40%.

Ku-Band 50 W GaN HEMT Power Amplifier Using Asymmetric Power Combining of Transistor Cells

In this paper, we present a Ku-band 50 W internally-matched power amplifier that asymmetrically combines the power transistor cells of the GaN high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) (CGHV1J070D) from Wolfspeed. The amplifier is designed using a large-signal transistor cell model in the foundry process, and asymmetric power combining, which consists of a slit pattern, oblique wire bonding and an asymmetric T-junction, is applied to obtain the amplitude/phase balance of the combined signals at the transistor cell combining position. Input and output matching circuits are implemented using a thin film process on a titanate substrate and an alumina substrate with the relative dielectric constants of 40 and 9.8, respectively. The pulsed measurement of a 330 μs pulse period and 6% duty cycle shows the maximum saturated output power of 57 to 66 W, drain efficiency of 40.3 to 46.7%, and power gain of 5.3 to 6.0 dB at power saturation from 16.2 to 16.8 GHz.

AlGaN/GaN High Electron Mobility Transistors on Semi-Insulating Ammono-GaN Substrates with Regrown Ohmic Contacts

AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistors on semi-insulating bulk ammonothermal GaN have been investigated. By application of regrown ohmic contacts, the problem with obtaining low resistance ohmic contacts to low-dislocation high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) structures was solved. The maximum output current was about 1 A/mm and contact resistances was in the range of 0.3–0.6 Ω·mm. Good microwave performance was obtained due to the absence of parasitic elements such as high access resistance.

An Improved Large Signal Model for 0.1 μm AlGaN/GaN High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMTs) Process and Its Applications in Practical Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) Design in W band

An improved empirical large signal model for 0.1 µm AlGaN/GaN high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) process is proposed in this paper. The short channel effect including the drain induced barrier lowering (DIBL) effect and channel length modulation has been considered for the accurate description of DC characteristics. In-house AlGaN/GaN HEMTs with a gate-length of 0.1 μm and different dimensions have been employed to validate the accuracy of the large signal model. Good agreement has been achieved between the simulated and measured S parameters, I-V characteristics and large signal performance at 28 GHz. Furthermore, a monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) power amplifier from 92 GHz to 96 GHz has been designed for validation of the proposed model. Results show that the improved large signal model can be used up to W band.

A Single Switcher Combined Series Parallel Hybrid Envelope Tracking Amplifier for Wideband RF Power Amplifier Applications

In this paper, an improved architecture for RF power amplifier envelope tracking supply modulator is presented. It consists of a single switched mode supply regulator and one linear regulator. The switched mode supply regulator has two outputs, one of which is used in conjunction with the linear regulator to provide a wideband, high efficiency power supply to the RF amplifier, whereas the second output provides a band limited high efficiency supply to the linear regulator. The design offers improved power efficiency, reduced system complexity and area savings since the dual output switched mode regulator requires one inductor and a simple control loop. The design was implemented in 14nm CMOS process and validated with simulations. The supply modulator achieves a peak efficiency of 74% with a 6 dB PAPR 20MHz LTE signal at 29dBm output power.

Driving circuitry for focused ultrasound noninvasive surgery and drug delivery applications

Recent works on focused ultrasound (FUS) have shown great promise for cancer therapy. Researchers are continuously trying to improve system performance, which is resulting in an increased complexity that is more apparent when using multi-element phased array systems. This has led to significant efforts to reduce system size and cost by relying on system integration. Although ideas from other fields such as microwave antenna phased arrays can be adopted in FUS, the application requirements differ significantly since the frequency range used in FUS is much lower. In this paper, we review recent efforts to design efficient power monitoring, phase shifting and output driving techniques used specifically for high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU).