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Flexible solid state power amplifiers for space use

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 126

INTERNATIIONAL JOURNAL OF MICROWAVE AND OPTIC

ICAL TECHNOLOGY,
VOL.10, NO.2, MARCH 2015

Flexible Solid State Power Amplifiers for Space use

R J Doshi1*, Deepak Ghodgaonkar2, D K Singh1, D K Das1
1
Space Applications Centre, Indian Space Research Organization
Ahmedabad-380015, India
2
Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology (DA-IICT),
Gandhinagar-382007, India
Email:rameshdoshi@sac.isro.gov.in

 have advanced much faster but the user has to use

Abstract- This work presents a simplified design of
a Solid State Power Amplifier (SSPA) with varying
RF output power (flexible SSPA) and its' new type
of application for onboard application. For satellite
applications, the uplink rain fading losses can be
compensated with the help of the Automatic Level
Control (ALC) technique by increasing the gain of
the amplifier but the for downlink rain fading
losses the output power of the power amplifier has
to be increased. This can be achieved by the use of
flexible SSPA to compensate the downlink rain
fade losses. For satellite applications it is necessary
to maximize power added efficiency in all
operating conditions for reliable and cost effective
operation. This is achieved by DC bias control of
the power stages of the power amplifier to improve
the overall power added efficiency. A remarkable
improvement of the order of 5 % at 3 dB back off
is achieved. As a part of recent developments on
flexible payloads worldwide, the flexi TWTAs can
be replaced by flexi SSPAs.
Index Terms: Dynamic Bias Circuits, Linearity,
Power Added Efficiency, Power Amplifier.
I. INTRODUCTION
When the satellite technology was in its
childhood, the space segment was much
simplified as compared to complex ground
segment. Later with advancement in technology,
the ground segments are made as simple and
portable as possible and the space segment is
made bulky and complex with 10 to 15 years of
life. The performance designed once was
unaltered (fixed) for the proposed life of 7 to 15
years. The limitation with such payloads is that
within the specified life, the technology would
the available services already on-board. It
becomes necessary to make the link parameters
like (C/N, EIRP, coverage, usage frequency)
variable so that any new requirement can be
accommodated even after launch of satellite. The
flexible payload allows user to change EIRP by
changing the RF output power of SSPA without
affecting the efficiency much.
The efficiency being the key parameter, many
efforts have been proposed to achieve high
efficiency of the RF power Amplifier, such as
DC-DC converter [1], digital control using switch
control and bias switch [2]. However, the
solutions proposed by [1] and [2] are not
satisfactory for portable wireless application due
to high complexity and high cost where. The
linearity of class-A and class-AB amplifiers are
good for power amplifier applications, but the
power efficiency of these two types is poor [3-4].
Switching mode power-amplifiers, such as Class-
D, Class-E, and Class-F amplifiers, have high
power efficiency, but they work as non-linear
amplifiers and may generate interferences for the
adjacent channels [5-8].
All these efforts are to improve the efficiency of
the amplifier at the saturation condition. But the
major concern for high power amplifier is to
improve the efficiency under the RF input back
off conditions. This calls for two contradictory
requirements of high linearity and efficiency
together. To meet such requirement Doherty
amplifier is proposed to improve the efficiency
over a wide power range [9-12]. The Doherty
amplifier is more suitable for improving the Peak
to Average Power Ratio (PAPR) and needs more
components. Another approach proposed is to

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INTERNATIIONAL JOURNAL OF MICROWAVE AND OPTIC
dynamically vary the bias point in a class-A
amplifier, according to the varying envelope of
the incoming RF input signal power to improve
the efficiency. All of these works are excellent
achievements and most of them are for ground
applications hence the aspects regarding space
applications are not presented.
For space applications, very limited work has
been proposed [13-14]. Moreover they are based
on only theoretical concept which may be
difficult to implement practically for space
application. A scenario for space hardware is
quite different then ground hardware. Some of
the critical challenges are DC power generation
on-board, thermal management, multipaction and
corona due to vacuum operation, ionizing
radiations, availability of space qualified
component, reliability guidelines, non-repairable
hardware etc. For ground applications,
availability of DC power and removal of heat is
not of major concern, but for satellite application
where Sun is the only source of energy and
conduction is the only medium to dissipate heat,
DC power generation and thermal management
are very critical. As compared to the ground
hardware, there are more restrictions on
component selection for space hardware because
of different reliability guidelines. For example,
the availability of the active device (BJT,
MESFET, MOSFET, etc.) which is the heart of
the active sub-systems with higher efficiency is
limited for space applications. It is also
mandatory to use devices with specified derating
guidelines to meet the reliability criteria of the
device. Higher the device efficiency lower is the
power dissipation and better the thermal
performance which leads to maintain specified
channel temperature of the device and hence the
reliability is good.
So, it is very useful to improve efficiency of any
active device in all applications. In this paper, we
present a simplified technique using which the
space hardware can be easily realized.
II. NEED FOR FLEXIBLE OUTPUT SSPA
Depending upon coverage area and user
requirement, the power amplifier is selected for
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ICAL TECHNOLOGY,
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satellite transponder design. A common practice
is to design a payload with state-of-the-art sub-
systems available in the market. For example,
100 watt SSPAs for UHF-band, 40 watt SSPAs
for L-band and 15 watt SSPAs for C-band are
available off-the-shelf with space heritage design.
They are commonly selected for satellite
transponder design. Anything different from the
off-the-shelf space heritage product needs new
design and new qualification leads to impact on
cost and schedule. The following examples show
the applications where flexible output power
SSPAs are needed.
(i) The Direct-To-Home (DTH) Television
reception is highly distorted and sometimes the
Television reception is fully lost due to rain
fading of the signal (especially when the
communication is at Ku-Band). The uplink rain
fading losses can be met by using Automatic
Level Control (ALC) circuit at the input of the
amplifier which compensates the uplink path loss
by increasing the small signal gain of the
amplifier. But, in order to meet the downlink rain
fading losses, the satellite transmit power has to
be increased. This can be achieved by increasing
the input power to the final power devices but
this drives the device into hard saturation which
affects reliability of the device. Another approach
can be use of higher power amplifier than
normally required. This higher power amplifier
will consume more power even when there is no
rain. So it is advantageous to keep higher power
SSPA in the chain, operate at the required power
level and increase the output power automatically
as and when required while keeping the
efficiency maximum at back-off. This is a
different application proposed than most of the
published work.
(ii) The growing development of
telecommunications results in the crucial need for
spectrally efficient modulation techniques.
M-QAM modulations appear then useful for
satellite communication systems. But the main
critical point lies in that the non constant
envelope characteristic of M-QAM signals
classically requires an output power back-off of
the SSPAs which is prejudicial to the Power
Added Efficiency (PAE) performances. As a

INTERNATIIONAL JOURNAL OF MICROWAVE AND OPTIC
consequence, these types of modulation require
an elaborate management of the RF power
resources to meet the linearity specification while
saving DC consumption.
Most of the satellites launched so far are with
fixed output whose output can be varied using
tele-commandable attenuator but has very low
efficiency at back-off. The Flexible output power
SSPA allows changing the output power while
maintaining a good efficiency at back off.
Table 1: Efficiency of 20 watt SSPA under back-off
RF Input level Pout
(dBm)
Dc power
consumption add
(watt) (%)
Nominal 20 54 37
Pin-4 10 42 23
Pin-7 5 37 13
Table 1 shows the relationship between the input
back-off with the DC power consumption and
power added efficiency of 20Watt GaAs FET
SSPA developed for space applications. DC
power consumption does not reduce at the same
rate as output power. So efficiency reduces
drastically at every 3 dB output power back-off.
III. THEORY
The DC power consumption of the devices can
be changes by either changing the Drain voltage
Vds or by changing the Drain current Ids. The
drain current can be changed by changing gate-to
source voltage Vgs. Most of the authors [13-15]
have proposed to vary Vds and few authors have
proposed to vary both. It is not clear from these
works that when the bias parameters are changed
how the impedance matching of the devices and
other parameters for linearity is taken care. For
ground applications it do not matter much which
parameter is varied as there is not much concern
for reliability as for space applications. Many of
the authors have not explained the details about
which parameter should be varied for different
devices. For space applications frequent changing
of gate voltage is not recommended because the
drain current will also vary and hence the
reliability of the device. The most important
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ICAL TECHNOLOGY,
VOL.10, NO.2, MARCH 2015
reason is that for the devices like Metal to
Semiconductor FETs (MESFET), changing the
gate voltage affects reliability as well as gain of
the device because gate voltage is also related to
mutual trans-conductance.
If gain of the amplifier is changed an additional
gain compensation circuit has to be incorporated
in the amplifier. So it is advisable to reduce the
drain voltage rather than drain current. The non-
linearity of the device is dependent on the drain
voltage so reducing the drain voltage may affect
the linearity of the SSPA so it is necessary to
ensure that the inter-modulation product remains
within permissible limits. Moreover for space
applications another important aspect is to design
the line up such that the final power devices are
not driven into hard compression affecting the
reliability under the unwanted overdrives up to
20 dB from the ground. For SSPAs using wide
band gap devices like GaN (Gallium Nitride), the
compression point will be 3-4 dB so at back off
the gain will change by 3-4 dB for which gain
compensation will be must. Most of the
published work does not emphasize on such
reliability aspects. The proposed design will
ensure that the device’s reliability is not degraded
under the overdrive conditions also for space
application.
For satellite applications class B or AB is
preferred for optimum performance in terms of
better linearity and efficiency. The following
explanation demonstrates the relation of the
efficiency at saturation and at back off for fixed
drain voltage [15]. Under ideal fixed voltage
class B operation, the ratio of drain efficiency
with variable and fixed drain voltage given by
 dVar 1 
 (1)
dfixed
1       2
Where  represents the FET “ideally factor” and
β= Pout/Pout max, the back-off ratio. For an ideal
device (α =0), the ratio is always greater than 1
indicating higher efficiency under “extended
saturation” operation. Thus above discussion
shows that the SSPA offers higher efficiency at

INTERNATIIONAL JOURNAL OF MICROWAVE AND OPTIC
saturation as compared to the back-off condition.
IV. DESIGN, OPTIMIZATION AND SIMULATION
Before implementing the approach practically it
is necessary to design, optimize and simulate the
performance of high power device at different
operating conditions. The non-linear model of the
device is characterized using non-linear
simulation on ADS and the important parameters
like stability, gain, power and linearity are
optimized for different voltages. Later, the same
is carried out practically to collect the required
data. To understand the technique following two
different approaches were worked out and the
best was selected.
1.) Constant output power Approach
2.) Constant Gain Approach
Comparing both the approaches, it is observed
that the constant Gain approach is very useful for
space applications as the transponder gain is not
changed as compared to constant output power
approach where transponder gain changes. Some
sort of controller is required which will vary the
drain voltage in accordance with input power
back-off. This has been realized as follows.
The RF input power was monitored using a
coupler and this coupled power was converted
into DC voltage using RF detector. This detected
signal was used for reference signal for the
dynamic biasing controller. The dynamic biasing
controller consists of A/D converters, PROMs, a
PROM controller and D/A converters, which
provide control voltage for drain. All these
designs need to be passed through space qualified
processes and all components needed for circuit
realization must be as per ESA/NASA derating
guidelines. As compared to ground hardware, the
major challenge lies in design, selection of
components with Radiation Hardening (Rad-
Hard) as well development process and
qualification over extreme temperature (-10 to +
60 degree Celsius) under vacuum of the order of
10E-6 torr.
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129
ICAL TECHNOLOGY,
VOL.10, NO.2, MARCH 2015
The block diagram of SSPA with Dynamic Bias
approach is shown in Figure.1
Fig.1. Block diagram of SSPA with dynamic bias
approach
V. REALIZATION OF HARDWARE
The circuit topology can be explained as follows.
The input signal is first coupled by a coupler of
suitable coupling and then detected by RF
detector diode. The dc output of the detector is
given to the ADC, where it is to be converted into
digital form to feed to the EPROM. Depending
upon the data fed to the EPROM, it will give the
DC output in digital form, which is then
converted back into an analog form by DAC.
This DC voltage is given to EPC (Electronics
Power Conditioner). The EPC finally provides
the required bias with sufficient load current to
different amplifier stages. Sometimes the
controller circuit is part of EPC but we propose to
include the controller part in SSPA due to various
reasons. SSPA requires gain and output power
stability so gain and power compensation over
the temperature range from -10 °C to +60 °C in
vacuum is required. For this, controller is
required which is part of SSPA so the same
controller also can be used for the above
function. Many RF designers procure EPC from
other vendors and if such features are demanded
the cost can be very high. Thus we have used the
controller circuit as a part of SSPA.
Table 2. shows a typical look up table which is
burn into the EEPROM. In order to implement
the circuit practically, more parameters are
required to be measured and presented so the
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INTERNATIIONAL JOURNAL OF MICROWAVE AND OPTIC
ICAL TECHNOLOGY,
VOL.10, NO.2, MARCH 2015

results are presented in tabular form rather than Table 4: Test data for 10 Watt SSPA with Dynamic
the graphical representation. Bias.

Table 2: Look up table for EEPROM controller Pin Pout IRF VDC Pdc η (%)
(dBm) (dBm) (Amp) (volt) (watt)
18 38.93 2.44 9.0 21.96 35.36
Output of Input to Input power level
17 37.95 2.21 8.49 18.76 33.24
ADC (volt) DAC (volt)
16 36.95 1.87 8.10 15.15 32.71
4 9.0 Nominal RF input
15 35.95 1.70 7.74 13.16 29.91
3.5 7.73 1 dB input back-off
14 34.95 1.60 7.61 12.18 25.67
3.0 6.96 2 dB input back-off
13 33.95 1.53 7.53 11.52 21.55
2.5 6.25 3 dB input back-off
2.0 5.74 4 dB input back-off
1.5 5.40 5 dB input back-off Table 5: shows the efficiency improvement using
flexible 10 Watt SSPA
VI. TESTING OF ACTUAL HARDWARE. Table 5: The efficiency improvement using flexible 10
The interfacing circuit of Dynamic Biasing Watt SSPA
Controller is shown in the Figure.2
Pin (dBm) Efficiency DC power
improvement improvement
(%) (watt)
Input From detector

18 (Nominal) 0 0
17 1.49 2.19
Output to EPC
ADC 0820

EEPROM

DAC 0800

16 5.19 4.64
89C52

15 6.91 5.52
14 6.80 5.66
13 6.22 5.63

The DC power saving of about 5 watt at 3 dB

Fig.2. Interfacing circuit of dynamic biasing controller
input back-off for 10 watt SSPA is quite
considerable for on-board applications. In the
The DAC output is applied to Power supply present case the drain voltage of only final device
circuit (EPC) which provides voltage required for is varied but for higher power SSPAs the driver
last stage along with sufficient load current. stage of the final stage can also be varied to get
Thus by increasing the input by 1 dB and giving higher amount of efficiency improvement. This
the execute command; all the required voltages amount is still higher for higher power SSPAs as
were generated by the EPROM programmer explained in earlier discussion.
along with the sufficient drive required by the Here we present the flexible SSPA using state of
last device. the art GaN HEMT device. The non linear model
of High power GaN device is used to perform
Table 3 shows the test data for 10 Watt SSPA Harmonic Balance simulation on ADS and the
without Dynamic Bias. simulated results are presented here. The amount
of DC power saving is shown for 200 watt GaN
Table 3: Test data for 10 watt SSPA without dynamic device at 1.2 GHz frequency in the following
bias Tables 6 and 7.
Pin Pout IRF VDC Pdc η (%)
(dBm) (dBm) (Amp) (Volt) (watt) Table 6: 200 watt GaN device without dynamic bias
18 38.93 2.44 9.0 21.96 35.36
17 38.23 2.30 9.0 20.70 31.75 Pin Pout IRF VDC Pdc η (%)
16 37.36 2.16 9.0 19.44 27.52 (dBm) (dBm) (Amp) (volt) (watt)
15 36.33 2.03 9.0 18.27 23.00 39 53.0 11.7 28 327.6 58.5
14 35.27 1.93 9.0 17.37 18.87 38 52.6 11.1 28 310.8 56.3
13 34.20 1.85 9.0 16.65 15.34 37 52.0 10.3 28 288.4 52.7
36 51.2 9.4 28 263.2 48.2
Table 4 shows the test data for 10 Watt SSPA
with Dynamic Bias.

IJMOT-2014-9-630 © 2015 IAMOT

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INTERNATIIONAL JOURNAL OF MICROWAVE AND OPTIC
ICAL TECHNOLOGY,
VOL.10, NO.2, MARCH 2015

Table 7: 200 watt GaN device with dynamic bias [4] Kyounghoon Yang, Member, IEEE, George I. Haddad,
Life Fellow, IEEE, and Jack R. East, Member, IEEE High-
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