Maximum Drain Efciency Class F3 RF Power Amplier

Marian K. Kazimierczuk
Department of Electrical Engineering Wright State University Dayton, Ohio 45435, USA. Email: marian.kazimierczuk@wright.edu

Rafal P. Wojda
Department of Electrical Engineering Wright State University Dayton, Ohio 45435, USA. Email: wojda.2@wright.edu

AbstractThis paper presents a design procedure for the class F3 RF power amplier. The required range of the drain current conduction angle for the class F3 power amplier is specied. Additionally, an equation for the resistance of the third harmonic resonant circuit is given. Class F3 , AB, and C power ampliers were designed and simulated to compare their respective performance in terms of efciency.

I. I NTRODUCTION Class F RF power ampliers (PAs) utilize multipleharmonic resonators in the output network to shape the active device output voltage, such that the power loss in the device is reduced and the efciency is improved [1]-[7]. The main concept of the class F power amplier is to increase the overall efciency with respect to class A, B, AB, and C power ampliers. In the MOSFET class F RF power amplier, the drain current ows when the drain-to-source voltage is low, and is zero when the drain-to-source voltage is high. Therefore, the product of the drain current and the drain-tosource voltage waveforms is low, and the power dissipated in the active device is signicantly reduced. Class F power ampliers can be categorized as having either maximally at drain-to-source voltage or maximum drain efciency [4], [5], [7]. Present literature claims that the 3rd harmonic resonant circuit does not consist of any parallel resistance [1]-[7]. However, the presence of this resistance is essential in shaping the MOSFET drain-to-source voltage vDS waveform because the third harmonic of the voltage across R3 is generated. Up to now, all literature has lacked a design procedure for the 3rd harmonic resonant circuit. The objectives of this paper are to: introduce a design procedure for the third harmonic resonant circuit in the class F3 power amplier, determine the resistance of the resonant circuit for the third harmonic, and establish the drain current conduction angle. II. C LASS F RF P OWER A MPLIFIER WITH T HIRD H ARMONIC The circuit of the class F RF power amplier with a third harmonic resonator, called F3 , is shown in Fig. 1. The circuit consists of a transistor, load network, and RF choke (RFC).

Fig. 1.

Class F3 power amplier with third harmonic resonator.

The load network is composed of two parallel-resonant RLC circuits connected in series. The rst resonant circuit is tuned to the third harmonic 3fo . The second resonant circuit is tuned to the operating frequency fo and the ac power is delivered to the load resistance R. The drain current waveform for any conduction angle is expressed as iD =
tcos IDM cos1cos 0

for < t for 2 ,

(1)

where IDM is the peak value of the drain current. The cosine of the conduction angle of the drain current is given by cos = Vt VGS , Vgsm (2)

where Vt is the threshold voltage, VGS is the dc component of the gate-to-source voltage, and Vgsm is the amplitude of the ac component of gate-to-source voltage. The drain-to-source voltage is given by [7] as vDS = VI +vds1 +vds3 = VI Vm cos t+Vm3 cos 3t, (3) where Vm3 is the voltage drop across the resistor R3 due to the 3rd harmonic and Vm is the voltage drop across the resistor R due to the fundamental component of the output voltage. The third harmonic waveform vds3 is 180 out of phase with respect to the fundamental frequency voltage vds1 .

978-1-4244-9474-3/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE

2785

In the class F3 amplier, the relation between the amplitude of third harmonic Vm3 and the amplitude of the fundamental component Vm is expressed by Vm3 3 IDM R3 Im3 R3 3 R3 = = = Vm Im R 1 IDM R 1 R = 1 sin 3 cos 3 cos 3 sin 12 ( sin cos ) R3 R . (9)

The ratio of the amplitude of the third harmonic Vm3 to the amplitude of the fundamental component Vm is equal to 1/9 for maximally at drain-to-source voltage vDS [4], [7] and is equal to 1/6 for maximum drain efciency [5], [7]. Therefore, the required resistance R3 for the class F3 amplier with maximally at drain-to-source voltage vDS is R3(maxf lat) =
Fig. 2. Fourier coefcients n of the drain current iD as a function of conduction angle .

and for maximum drain efciency is R3(maxef f ) =

R1 9|3 |

(10)

Expanding the drain current given by (1) into a Fourier series

III. R ESULTS

R1 . 6|3 |

(11)

iD (t) = IDM 0 +
n=1

n cos nt ,

(4)

one obtains the dc component of the drain current sin cos IDM = 0 IDM , (1 cos ) (5) the amplitude of the fundamental component of the drain current II = iD d(t) = Im 1 = sin cos iD cos td(t) = IDM (1 cos ) = 1 IDM , (6)

1 2

In the subsequent analysis, the class F3 , AB, and C RF power ampliers are designed, simulated, and compared. The output power of each amplier is assumed to be 10 W, the operating frequency is f = 800 MHz, and the input voltage is VI = 12 V. The following simulations are carried out using Saber with an ideal MOSFET model excluding parasitic capacitance and with the threshold voltage Vt = 1 V. A. Class F3 Power Amplier From Fig. 2 and (8) it can be seen that the conduction angle should be within the range: 90 < < 180 . For the conduction angle = 110 and the dc component of the gate-to-source voltage VGS = 1.5 V, the required amplitude of the ac component of the gate-to-source voltage from (2) is Vgsm = 1.462 V. The saturation drain-to-source voltage is vDSsat = vGS Vt = VGS + Vgsm Vt = 1.5 + 1.462 1 = 1.962 V. (12) Selecting the minimum drain-to-source voltage vDSmin = 2.4 V, the maximum voltage amplitude of the fundamental component for the maximum drain efciency class F3 power amplier is [7] 2 Vm = (VI vDSmin ) = 1.1547(12 2.4) = 11.085 V 3 (13) and the amplitude of the third harmonic to achieve the maxm imum drain efciency is Vm3 = V6 = 1.848 V. The load resistance of the amplier is R=
2 11.0852 Vm = 6.14 . = 2Po 2 10

and the amplitude of the n-th harmonic of the drain current Imn = 1 =

iD cos ntd(t)

2 sin n cos n cos n sin IDM = n IDM . n(n2 1)(1 cos )

(7)

Fig. 2 shows Fourier coefcients n of the drain current iD as a function of conduction angle . It can be seen that the conduction angle of the drain current must be in the range 90 < < 180 (8)

to satisfy the phase relation between rst and third harmonic voltage as shown in (3). Only in this range of , 1 is positive and 3 is negative. Adding the third harmonic to the fundamental component reduces the drain-to-source voltage amplitude Vpk . Hence, the voltage waveform vDS changes as the ratio Vm3 /Vm increases.

(14)

The Fourier coefcients of the drain current of the class F3 PA for the conduction angle = 110 are 1 = 0.5315 and

2786

Fig. 3. The magnitude of input impedance Zi of the load network as a function of frequency f for the class F3 power amplier with maximum drain efciency.

Fig. 4. Waveforms of the current io through resistor R (upper trace), current i3 through resistor R3 (second trace from the top), fundamental component of the output voltage vds1 (second trace from the bottom), and third harmonic voltage vds3 (bottom trace).

Assuming the loaded quality factor of the resonant circuit for the fundamental frequency is QL = 8 and the loaded quality factor of the resonant circuit for the third harmonic R is QL3 = 20, the components are L = QL = 152.7 pH, R3 C = QL = 259 pF, L3 = 3QL3 = 40.2 pH, and R QL3 C3 = 3R3 = 109.3 pF. The magnitude of input impedance of the designed load network Zi as a function of frequency f is presented in Fig. 3. To ensure the constant input current II , the inductance of the RF choke (RFC) was selected as Lf = 1.23 H. To block the dc voltage on the load network, the output coupling capacitor was chosen to be CB = 324 nF. The designed circuit for maximum drain efciency was simulated using Saber Sketch. In preliminary simulation, the amplitude of the 3rd harmonic was greater than the amplitude of that in the amplier with maximum drain efciency mode. Therefore, a slight modication of the third harmonic resonant circuit was made by decreasing the resistance R3 to 10 , which decreases the amplitude of third harmonic voltage. The waveforms of the voltage drops and currents through the resistors R3 and R are presented in Fig. 4. It can be seen that the third harmonic was 180 out of phase with respect to the fundamental frequency. Moreover, it can be seen that the third harmonic waveform was attenuated after the beginning of each period of the fundamental frequency. This is because the resonant circuit for the third harmonic behaves like a frequency multiplier. The amplitude of the fundamental component was Vm = 11.365 V, the amplitude of the third harmonic was Vm3 = 1.91 V, the amplitude of the current through resistor R was Im = 1.9 A, and the amplitude of the current through resistor R3 was Im3 = 0.192 A. Hence, the

3 = 0.04487. Hence, the resistance connected in parallel with the resonant circuit tuned to the third harmonic is 1 0.5315 R3 = R= 6.14 = 12.13 . (15) 6|3 | 6| 0.04487|

power loss in 3rd harmonic resonant circuit due to resistance R3 was 1 2 1 I R3 = (192 103 )2 10.5 = 193.5 mW. 2 m3 2 (16) Fig. 5 presents the waveforms of the drain current iD and drain-to-source voltage vDS . The conduction angle of the drain current iD was 110. The maximum drain current was IDM = 3.4008 A, the maximum drain-to-source voltage vDS(max) = 22.2 V, and the minimum drain-to-source voltage vDS(min) = 2.0016 V, which is higher than the MOSFET drain-to-source saturation voltage vDSsat , but is lower than the assumed minimum drain- to-source vlotage vDSmin = 2.4 V. Fig. 6 shows waveforms of power dissipation in the transistor, voltage vDS , and drain current iD . The overall efciency of the designed class F3 power amplier with a conduction angle = 110 was = 71.66 %. Using the same design procedure as shown above, the class F3 power amplier with the drain current conduction angle PR3 =

Fig. 5. Waveforms of the drain current iD (upper trace) and drain-to-source voltage vDS (bottom trace).

2787

Fig. 6. Waveform of power dissipation in the transistor (upper trace) and combined waveforms of voltage vDS and drain current iD (bottom trace).

Fig. 7. Waveforms of the drain current iD (upper trace), drain-to-source voltage vDS (second trace from the top), and combined fundamental component of the output voltage vds1 and third harmonic voltage vds3 (bottom trace) in the class F3 power amplier with conduction angle = 60 .

= 60 was designed. The waveforms of the drain current, drain-to-source voltage, fundamental component of the output voltage, and the third harmonic voltage are shown in Fig. 7. It can be seen that the third harmonic voltage is in phase with the fundamental component of the output voltage and that the drain-to-source voltage vDS has triangular shape. The waveforms shown in Fig. 7 are in contradiction to the waveforms of the class F3 power amplier, which proves that the class F3 PA should have the drain current conduction angle given by (8). B. Class AB Power Amplier The parameters of the designed and simulated class AB PA were: dc component of the gate-to-source voltage VGS = 1.5 V, RF choke (RFC) inductance Lf = 1.23 H, coupling capacitor CB = 324 nF, conduction angle = 110, loaded quality factor of fundamental frequency resonant circuit QL = 8 with ideal passive components. The simulated overall efciency of the designed class AB PA was = 54.36%. C. Class C Power Amplier The parameters of the designed and simulated class C PA were: dc component of the gate-to-source voltage was VGS = 0 V, RF choke (RFC) inductance Lf = 1.23 H, coupling capacitor CB = 324 nF, conduction angle = 60 , loaded quality factor of fundamental frequency resonant circuit QL = 8 with an ideal passive components. The simulated overall efciency of the designed class C PA was = 74.41%. From the comparison of the designed ampliers, it can be seen that the efciency of class F3 PA was higher than that of class AB by 17%. However, the class C amplier was more efcient by 2.75%. Hence, the efciency of the class C power amplier was the highest among all the three designed ampliers. IV. C ONCLUSIONS This paper has presented the design procedure for the class F3 RF power amplier. The required conduction angle range for the class F3 amplier has been established to be: 90 <

< 180. Moreover, equations to compute the third harmonic resonator resistance and reactive components has been given for both types of F3 ampliers, i.e., with maximally at drainto-source voltage vDS and with the maximum drain efciency. The class F3 power amplier with conduction angle = 110 , output power 10 W, and operating frequency 800 MHz was designed and simulated. The efciency of the designed class F3 power amplier was = 71.66 %. Similarly, the class AB power amplier with conduction angle = 110 and the class C power amplier with conduction angle = 60 were designed and simulated. The efciency of the class F3 power amplier was 17% higher than that of the corresponding class AB power amplier. However, the efciency of the class F3 power amplier was 2.75% lower than the efciency of the class C power amplier. R EFERENCES
[1] V. J. Tyler, A new high-efciency high-power amplier, Marconi Review, vol. 21, no. 130, pp. 96-109, Fall 1958. [2] V. O. Stocks, Radio Transmitters:RF Power Amplication, London, England: Van Nostrand, 1970, pp. 38-48. [3] M. K. Kazimierczuk, A new concept of Class F tuned power amplier, Proc. 27-th Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems, Morgantown, WV, June 11-12, 1984, pp. 425-428. [4] F. H. Raab, Class-F power ampliers with maximally at waveforms, IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory and Technique, vol. 45, no. 11, pp. 2007-2012, November 1997. [5] F. H. Raab, Maximum efciency and output of Class-F power ampliers, IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory and Technique, vol. 49, no. 6, pp. 1162-1166, June 2001. [6] F. H. Raab, Class-E, Class-C, Class-F power ampliers based upon a nite number of harmonics, IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory and Technique, vol. 49, no. 6, pp. 1462-1468, August 2001. [7] M. K. Kazimierczuk, RF Power Ampliers, John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, UK, 2008.

2788