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Design Simulation and Fabrication of Hybrid Circuits

for RF Power Amplifiers Used in LTE Base Stations

Department of Telecommunication Engineering


Shalini T S Siddaganga Institute of Technology
Tumkuru, India
Department of Telecomminication Engineering
satisharyan@gmail.com
Siddaganga Institute of Technology
Tumkuru, India
tss100shalini@gmail.com

R N Sathisha,M. Tech


Abstract— ​Power amplifiers are used to convert a small components used in modern wireless communication systems
high frequency signal to large high frequency signal for not only for mobile communication, but also used in radar,
transmission through a microwave antenna to another electronic warfare, satellite communication, medical imaging
microwave antenna. As the required distance between the applications. The requirements that must be satisfied by a
microwave antenna increases, more power is required at power amplifier differs significantly from one application to
the base station in order to transmit. The transistor used another, different performance parameters should be
here is the CREE CGH40010 transistor, ​Using these optimized for each application. ​Generally, power amplifier is a
transistor specifications and characterizations, The electronic device that uses DC power to increase the power
theoretical amplifier gain is 19dB. The simulated gain level of an input signal which is defined in a specific
before tuning is 11dB. The tuned amplifier, i,e adjusting frequency band. Microwave power amplifiers are devices that
the matching network in real-time is 18dB. The two stage operate in microwave frequency regime of radio frequency
power amplifier gain is 33.41dB. spectrum so that they are intended to use in high frequency
applications.
Keywords— ​Power Amplifier, Hybrid Circuits, LTE, AWR
Microwave office, Amplifier characterization, X-band, PAE.
II. DESIGN FLOW

I. INTRODUCTION
Power amplifiers are electronic devices which converts DC
power into high microwave power thereby generating high
frequency, large voltage and current waveforms. They are one
of the indispensable parts of high frequency systems including
radars, commercial wireless communication tools such as cell
phones, microwave heating devices etc. The transistor used
here is the CREE CGH40010 transistor, Cree’s CGH40010 is
an unmatched, gallium nitride (GaN) high electron mobility
transistor (HEMT). This transistor operating from a 28 volt
rail, by offering a general purpose and broadband solution to a
variety of RF and microwave applications. GaN HEMTs
offers a high efficiency, high gain and wide bandwidth
capabilities which makes the CGH40010 transistor ideal for
linear and compressed amplifier circuits. This transistor is
characterized at the quiescent operating point with targeted Figure 1. RF power Amplifier Design Steps
frequency of 2.5 GHz.
Microwave power amplifier is one of the most vital

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III. CHARACTERIZATION
Transistor characterization is performed by a curve tracer
element which is available in AWR microwave office tool that
steps the voltage from gate to source and sweeps the voltage
from drain to source. The corresponding IV curve is plotted in
Figure 4. The data sheet summary is shown below, The
CGH40010 is a 10 W, DC - 6 GHz, RF Power GaN HEMT.
Features:
1. Up to 6 GHz Operation
2. 16 dB Small Signal Gain at 2.0 GHz
3. 14 dB Small Signal Gain at 4.0 GHz
4. 13 W typical PSAT
5. 65 % Efficiency at PSAT ​Figure 3. FET VCCS Characterstics
6. 28 V Operation
In the turned–on region, the non-linearity of the transistor can
Applications: be read as a linear system , if the gate voltage level is very
1. 2-Way Private Radio low, that is known as a small signal analysis.
2. Broadband Amplifiers
3. Cellular Infrastructure
4. Test Instrumentation
5. Class A, AB, Linear amplifiers suitable for OFDM,
W-CDMA, EDGE, CDMA waveforms.

Figure 4. CGH40010 IV curve

The above figure shows the gain versus frequency IV curve


for the CGH40010 transistor.

IV. DESIGN OF POWER AMPLIFIER


Before designing the power amplifier, It is very essential to
check whether the transistor is stable or not, If the transistor is
Figure 2. Curve Tracer Setup stable we can proceed for the designing of matching networks,
otherwise designing of stability network is done first then
proceed for the designing of the matching circuits using
A. Transfer Characteristics of a Transistor
distributed elements or lumped elements based on the
Field effect transistors are voltage-controlled current sources frequency of operation whether low frequency or high
(VCCS), the transfer characteristics of a transistor is shown in frequency.
Fig 4. When Vgs is below the threshold voltage ,the drain
current Ids will be zero. Suppose if there is an increase in Vgs,
the transistor reaches turned on region. As soon as the A. Stability
transistor enters into turned on region, Ids increases in a non The first and very important parameter expected from a power
linear manner. And finally, Ids will remain almost constant. amplifier is not to oscillate. Due to the internal feedback
mechanism inside the transistors, the part of the output signal
may going to fed back to the input side and if actual input

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signal and feedback signal may somehow have same phases
Figure 6.Stability measurement [AWR screenshot]
then they will add up and create oscillations. This process is
generated intentionally in oscillator circuits but for an power
From the above graph plotted in AWR Simulation tool, the
amplifier it is hazardous and degrades the performance of an
stability factor K is 0.7601 which does not satisfy the stability
amplifier. Therefore, after choosing the class of operation,
test and B1 is 1.569 which is greater than zero, from the graph
stability analysis of a transistor should be done and a stability
we can conclude that the transistor is not stable, It is very
circuit must be designed if necessary. The stability criteria
essential to make the transistor stable by adding a stability
design equations are given below:
network to the transistor.
1. K-Δ Test
2. K-B1 Test B. Stability Network
Where Stability factor K is given by: To obtain a PA which is unconditionally stable at all
frequencies and at all impedances seen by transistor, the
designer, most probably, needs to add a stability network to
, K >1 the circuit. In Figure 7, two different stability circuit
topologies are shown. Due to the ease of implementation using
microstrip circuits, the stability circuit topology shown in the
Figure 7-a is chosen in this work.
As frequency increases, the physical sizes of circuit elements
, B>0 will become comparable with wavelength and all circuit
elements will behave as ​distributed elements in reality. The
proposed R-C network is designed and realized ​using
distributed resistance and capacitance which will have
parasitic components around actual elements.

​Figure 5. Circuit diagram for S parameters

As we already mentioned in the above, the stability test


criteria test should satisfy for the transistor to be stable, the Figure 7. Stability network topologies
stability factor K and B1 are simulated in the AWR
microwave office as shown in the below Figure.6 The stability topology Figure 7.a is chosen and the stability
network is designed as shown in the below figure

Figure 8. Stability network for a CGH40010 transistor

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C. Input Matching
The input matching is done using distributed elements and the
corresponding gain variation graph is plotted as shown below:

Figure 12. Variation Of Gain With Output Matching

V. BIAS NETWORK
If bias network elements are not used as matching elements
then input impedance of the bias network will be very high,
Figure 9. Input Matching [AWR Screenshot] ideally open circuit, compared to 50 ohms to isolate the bias
network from matching circuits at high frequencies. Bias
networks can be designed using RF chokes for low frequency
amplifiers. Bias networks are designed using λ/4 transmission
lines at microwave frequencies.
The figure 13 shows the designed biasing network for
the power amplifier design using two inductors, the baising
network had been designed with two voltage sources because
it is easy to measure with the two voltage sources
independently Vgs=-2.25V, Vdd=28V.

Figure 10. Variation of Gain With Input Matching​.

D. Output Matching
The output matching is done at the load side in order to match
the 50ohm source to the 50ohm load, similar to the input
Figure 13. Biasing network [AWR Screenshot]
matching, the output matching is done using distributed
elements and the corresponding gain for output matching is
plotted as shown in below figure,

Figure 11. Output matching [AWR Screenshot]

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usually should not exceed 4, and the fourth one is usually a
buffer or a 2x multiplier. Using our previous designed
microwave power amplifier, a two stage amplifier is designed
as shown in Figure 17, and the simulation results are
presented.

Figure 14. Power Amplifier Gain without matching

Figure 17. Gain of two stage power amplifier.

CONCLUSION
In this paper, we have successfully simulated two microwave
amplifier designs, the single stage power amplifier, and the
two stage amplifier. The single stage power amplifier gain at
2.5GHz is ​11dB.The tuned single stage amplifier gain i.e
adjusting matching network real-time, is 18 dB. The two stage
amplifier gain with tuned network is 33 dB.

Figure 15. Transducer gain and return loss of amplifier circuit plotted on a
power gain in dB. vs frequency set of axes.

VI. TWO STAGE POWER AMPLIFIER

Figure 16. Two Stage Power Amplifiers

The two stage power amplifier is designed in order to increase


the gain, in a single stage amplifier does not have the required
gain. So does a two stage amplifier design which produce a
18Db + 18Db gain. The second transistor would saturate and
which generates a lot of noise. In designing a multiple stage
amplifier, it is very important to limit the noise from being
amplified. In doing so, the first stage would have the
maximum gain and every succeeding stage would be at least
half the previous stage with the last stage having only a gain
of 2. By having a large number of amplifiers in series has
diminishing returns. The number of amplifiers in series

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