A UNIFIED THEORY FOR NONLINEAR DISTORTION CHARACTERISTICS IN DIFFERENT AMPLIFIER TECHNOLOGIES

摘要

This article presents a unified theory of power amplifier nonlinear distortion characteristics under small- and large-signal regimes for a wide range of active device technologies. It shows that some handy interactions between mild and strongly nonlinear operation, the so-called large-signal intermodulation distortion sweet spots, are inherent to a wide variety of power amplifier technologies such as Si MOSFETs, Si LDMOS, GaAs-AlGaAs HEMTs, GaAs MESFETs, Si BJTs and GaN HEMTs, justifying their use in the design of highly linear and efficient power amplifiers.