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Automated top-down pruning optimization approach in RF power amplifier designs

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Abstract

This study presents an automated high-accuracy optimization approach for designing high-performance radio frequency high power amplifiers (HPAs). The amplifier is designed by applying a top-down pruning optimization approach that automatically converts the given HPA with lumped elements (LEs) to the HPA with distributed elements (DEs). Firstly, the lumped element HPA is designed based on a bottom-up optimization presented in Kouhalvandi et al. (2019 11th international conference on electrical and electronics engineering (ELECO), pp 510–513, 2019, 10.23919/ELECO47770.2019.8990407), then the LE amplifier is decomposed into basic unit cells that consist of one capacitor (C) and one inductor (L). For each LC unit, a suitable transmission line cell network is selected from predefined models by considering the maximum a posterior (MAP) metric. The component values of the resulting HPA design with DEs are optimized using Bayesian Optimization to achieve the desired design specifications. The overall proposed automated optimization accelerates the design process and outperforms the amplifier’s specifications that is constructed with DEs, automatically. The optimization starts with LE amplifier designs for keeping high linear gain performance and is converted to the HPA with transmission lines for having ready to fabricate circuit design. The proposed approach is validated by designing three HPAs with GaN HEMT from 1.8 to 2.2 GHz operational band frequency with drain efficiency more than 50% and with minimum linear power gain of 14.5 dB in all band frequency.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Prof. Marco Pirola from the department of electronics and telecommunications, Politecnico di Torino (PoliTO), Italy for all his support during the preparation of this work at PoliTO.

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Correspondence to Lida Kouhalvandi.

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One of the authors (O. Ceylan) has taken up a position at Maury Microwave CA/USA during the elaboration of this work, having no conflict of interest to declare. The other authors have declared no conflict on interest.

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This work was supported by Istanbul Technical University the Scientific Research Projects Unit Under Grant No. MDK-2019-41968.

This paper is an expanded version of paper entitled “Automated Matching Network Modeling and Optimization for Power Amplifier Designs” from the IEEE ELECO International Conference on Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Bursa, Turkey, November 28–30, 2019.

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Kouhalvandi, L., Ceylan, O. & Ozoguz, S. Automated top-down pruning optimization approach in RF power amplifier designs. Analog Integr Circ Sig Process 106, 525–534 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10470-020-01730-w

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