EDI CON Online: Design of a Fully Integrated, Surface Mount 3.5 GHz Doherty GaN PA for 5G Applications

The session will include an overview of the Doherty topology and its underlying principles of operation. It will describe the design of a fully integrated Doherty MMIC for the 3.5 GHz frequency band using the 0.4 µm GaN-on-SiC device. Details of the MMIC design, layout and packaging will be described. The measured performance shows good agreement with simulated and clearly demonstrates the advantage of the Doherty architecture.

The packaged MMIC was assembled onto a representative PCB for evaluation and achieved a PSAT of 45 dBm with a peak PAE of 50%. The PAE at 8 dB power back-off was 31.5%. Using a 100 MHz 5G NR signal with 11.5 dB PAPR the EVM was 3.5% and ACLR was less than -33 dBc at 36 dBm (4W) average power.

Presenter Bio:
Robert received his PhD in microwave engineering from Cardiff University in the UK in 2013, specializing in broadband power amplifier design. He subsequently worked for Thales in the Netherlands where he designed transmitter modules for active phased array radar. At Plextek RFI he designs pioneering millimeter-wave compound semiconductor integrated circuits for 5G communications as well as high performance power amplifiers.