Efficient Programmable Pulse Shaping for X -Band GaN MMIC Radar Power Amplifiers

Corrado Florian, Tommaso Cappello, Daniel Niessen, Rudi Paolo Paganelli, Scott Schafer, Zoya Popović

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

15 Citations (Scopus)
296 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

This paper presents a supply modulated X-band 12-W peak power transmitter that maintains an average efficiency greater than 50% for various shapes of amplitude-modulated pulses. The main power amplifier is a two-stage GaN-on-SiC MMIC with a peak efficiency of 65%, while the pulse envelope modulator is a 95% efficient hybrid 3-b power DAC implemented with GaN-on-Si transistor switches. Envelope shaping of a pulsed waveform results in improved spectral confinement of greater than 15 dB for the first sideband compared with constant-envelope pulses, with over 20 points improvement in total efficiency. The combination of supply modulation and digital predistortion is shown to result in high composite (total) efficiency of over 55%, with simultaneous high dynamic range and with flexible digitally programmable pulse shaping.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)881-891
Number of pages11
JournalIEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques
Volume65
Issue number3
Early online date16 Dec 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Mar 2017

Bibliographical note

Acceptance date is provisional and based on date of publication.

Keywords

  • envelope tracking (ET)
  • power DAC (pDAC)
  • radar pulsing
  • spectral confinement
  • supply modulator

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