WFD: ADVANCES IN HIGH-EFFICIENCY POWER DEVICE AND CIRCUIT TECHNOLOGIES

Date & Time: Friday, June 17; 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM

Location: Long Beach Convention Center, Room 202

Topics & Speakers:  

• High-efficiency power amplifiers: An overview, J. Schellenberg, Trex Hawaii

• Design of high-efficiency power amplifiers for base station applications – S. Cripps, Hywave Assoicates

• Advances in III-V RF power devices for base stations, C. Weitzel,  Freescale

• RF-LDMOS: A Device Technology for High Power RF Infrastructure Applications, W. Burger, Freescale

• Three steps to more efficient 3G base stations power amplifiers, R. Ranson, Filtronic

• High-efficiency techniques for wide dynamic range handset applications, P. Asbeck, UCSD

• Millimeter-Wave Device Technology for High Power Added Efficiency Amplifiers, R. Lai, Northrop-Grumman

• Design and performance of microwave and millimeter-wave high efficiency power amplifiers, J. Komiak, BAE Systems  

Sponsors:

MTT-5: Microwave High-Power Techniques

MTT-20: Wireless Communications  

Organizers:

J. Schellenberg, Trex Hawaii

B. Geller, iTerra Communications  

Current and projected commercial and military systems require microwave power amplifiers with ever increasing performance. Higher output power levels are required with even better linearity and efficiency. All this, of course, must be achieved at lower costs and higher reliability. Recent PA workshops have generally focused on techniques to improve the linearity with little emphasis on efficiency. This workshop takes a somewhat different tack in that the primary focus is on efficiency, while examining the subsequent impact of efficiency on other performance parameters such as output power, linearity, gain, bandwidth, stability and reliability. In general there is a definite conflict between efficiency and linearity, and one of the objectives of this workshop is to explore this conflict and determine cost-effective trade-offs.

With a focus on applications at microwave and millimeter wave frequencies (2 GHz on up), this workshop brings together some of the leading experts in microwave device and circuit technologies. The device topics include recent advances in GaAs, InP and Si device technologies (HBT, pHEMT, HFET, LDMOS and large band-gap devices) with emphasis on device structure and materials techniques to improve device efficiency. The circuit technology topics include biasing, class of operation, matching techniques input/output tuning, etc. In addition, this workshop examines techniques to improve the amplifier efficiency over a wide dynamic range, particularly important for cellular handsets applications. Circuit configurations include Doherty, LINC, Envelope Elimination & Restoration (Kahn) and Envelope Tracking. Practical commercial and military hardware examples will also be presented.