A High‐Efficiency Continuous Class‐F GaAs HBT Power Amplifier Enabled by Chip‐Package Co‐Designed Output Matching Network

ABSTRACT

This paper introduces a high‐efficiency GaAs HBT MMIC power amplifier (PA). A chip‐package co‐design strategy is proposed, in which high‐Q bonding wires are innovatively employed to replace lossy on‐chip inductors in the output matching network. This approach not only significantly reduces insertion loss but also leverages the favorable high‐frequency characteristics of the bonding wires to mitigate impedance deviations at the second and third harmonics, thereby satisfying the requirements of continuous Class‐F operation. The proposed theory is validated by designing a GaAs HBT PA operating from 5.9 to 7.1 GHz. The MMIC PA has a power‐added efficiency (PAE) of 46%–52% with an output power of 32.9–33.7 dBm. When driven by a 20 MHz, 256 QAM modulation signal, the measured EVM is better than 1.35%. In addition, the chip area is reduced to 1.04 mm ² , demonstrating that low‐loss matching synthesis using bonding wires is an effective approach for realizing high‐efficiency and compact RF front‐end PAs.