Design of Dual-Mode Dual-Band Outphasing Power Amplifier Leveraging on Periodicity of Non-Commensurate Transmission Line Combiner

Multi-mode multi-band power amplifiers (PAs) are becoming increasingly important for wireless communication systems that need to cover multiple frequency bands. This brief presents a dual-mode dual-band Outphasing power amplifier (OPA). OPA and inverted OPA (IOPA) operation modes are enabled at two frequency bands leveraging on the periodicity of the non-commensurate transmission line combiner (NCTLC). It is illustrated that the different base and delta lengths required by the OPA and IOPA modes can be satisfied by the NCTLC at different frequency bands. To validate the proposed method, a dual-mode dual-band OPA operating over 0.89–0.93 GHz (OPA mode) and 1.89–1.96 GHz (IOPA mode) is designed and fabricated. Measurement results show the fabricated OPA achieves 6 dB back-off drain efficiencies (DEs) of 41.3%–46.2% and 50.1%–62.3% at the frequency bands of 0.89–0.93 GHz and 1.89–1.96 GHz, respectively.