A 1.8-2.8 GHZ HIGHLY LINEAR BROADBAND POWER AMPLIFIER FOR LTE-A APPLICATION

This paper proposes a fully integrated broadband power amplifier for LTE-A application using GaAs HBT process. To improve the linearity and broadband performance, RC feedback structures and dynamic bias circuits are employed and designed through optimization. With careful design of the broadband matching networks in the proposed 3-stage power amplifier topology, a power gain above 21.6 dB is achieved from 1.8 GHz to 2.8 GHz. Driven by an 80 MHz wideband LTE-A signal with PAPR of 7.5 dB, the designed RF power amplifier achieves an average output power about 22 dBm at ACLR = −30 dBc over the entire 1 GHz frequency band. Considering the broad bandwidth of the driven signal and wide frequency coverage bandwidth, the performance merits of the proposed design compare favorably with the state-of-the-art.