High-power time-domain measurement system with active harmonic load-pull for high-efficiency base-station amplifier design

A measurement system combining vector corrected waveform measurements with active harmonic load-pull extends, for the first time, real-time experiment al waveform engineering up to the 30-W power level. The vector correction p rocedure is presented in this paper, A novel harmonic load-pull approach ba sed on the real-time measurement capability of the system is demonstrated o n a 4-W LDMOS device, A 20% increase in maximum output power to 4.7 W witho ut degrading gain and efficiency is realized, Waveform analysis at various drive and load conditions directly identifies nonlinear capacitance effects being a key design issue for the design of highly efficient power amplifie r.