In many base-station applications, the load/usage fluctuates over time periods of hours to days, thereby varying the required transmit power by as much as 10 dB. It is desirable to maintain high efficiency and linearity in the power amplifier under these back-off conditions in order to achieve high long-term efficiency. This paper demonstrates a scalable digital predistortion (DPD) approach that can be applied under different power back-off levels in envelope-tracking (ET) amplifiers and quantifies the associated efficiency. Efficiency comparisons are made with other amplifier configurations such as Class B and Doherty. Efficiency of 60% at full power (35 W average power) and >30% efficiency at 10 dB average power back-off are measured in an ET amplifier with a 7.54 dB peak-to-average ratio (PAPR) single-carrier WCDMA signal while meeting linearity specifications. Long-term base-station usage probability functions are presented. The long-term efficiency of the ET amplifiers is simulated to be greater than that of Class B and Doherty amplifiers.

This paper reports a differential photoreceiver module designed for short reach applications such as access network and data center interconnect. It consists of a monolithically integrated semi-conductor optical amplifier with a PIN photodiode and a linear transimpedance amplifier (TIA) mounted on the same carrier. A matching circuit is placed between the PIN and the TIA in order to increase the cut-off frequency. The module shows a −3 dB bandwidth of 43 GHz, a single-ended conversion gain of 10 000 V/W for an optical input power of −25 dBm and a sensitivity at 40 Gb/s non-return-to-zero operation of −22.5 dBm for a bit error rate of 10−9.

This paper presents a second-order tunable single-ended (unbalanced) bandpass filter (BPF) with continuous 0.4–3-GHz coverage and a tunable balun BPF with continuous 1.1–1.7-GHz coverage for software-defined radio transceivers with the use of band-switchable and radio frequency (RF)-micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS)-tuned resonators. The BPFs are realized with two pairs of RF switches for coarse-tuning and RF-MEMS-tunable capacitors for fine-tuning. On the one hand, for the tunable single-ended BPF, a transition between three bands is enabled using two pairs of RF switches. On the other hand, for the tunable balun BPF, a transition between two bands is enabled using one pair of RF switches. Furthermore, the three-band switchable single-ended BPF is constructed in a nested two-filter bank structure for expanding the tuning range without increasing the footprint. In addition, to complement the discrete band gaps, RF-MEMS capacitor-tuned resonators are used, and a continuous tuning range of nearly the entire ultra-high-frequency band is achieved. The filter bank is fabricated on a Duroid substrate with εr = 3.5 and h = 0.787 mm. The filter bank has an insertion loss of 3.2–6.8 dB and a 1-dB bandwidth of 65–450 MHz with a continuous tuning range of 0.4–3 GHz.

An analytical model is presented to improve the performance of the equilateral triangular microstrip antenna (ETMA). An improved model is presented taking into account the insertion of an air gap between the substrate and the ground plane, and High Tc superconducting material (HTS) for the triangular patch. The full-wave spectral domain technique in conjunction with the complex resistive boundary condition is used to calculate the characteristics including resonant frequencies, bandwidths, and radiation efficiency. Numerical results for the air gap tuning effect on the operating frequency and bandwidth of the high Tc superconducting triangular microstrip antenna (HTSTMA) are presented. The effect of temperature on resonant frequency and bandwidth of the HTSTMA are also given. The computed data are found to be in good agreement with results obtained using other methods.

Retrieval of cloud parameters in weather radar benefits from polarimetric measurements. Most polarimetric radars measure the full backscatter matrix (BSM) using a few alternating polarized sounding signals. Using specially encoded orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signals however, the BSM can be measured in a single simultaneous transmission of two orthogonally polarized signals. Based on a set of parameters for weather radar, the properties of such a signal are explored and its merit as a useful capability is shown.

This work presents radio-frequency-microelectromechanical-system (RF-MEMS)-based tunable input- and output-matching networks for a multi-band gallium nitride (GaN) power-amplifier applications. In the first part, circuit designs are shown and characterized for a fixed operation mode of the transistor, i.e. either a maximum-output-power- or a maximum-power-added-efficiency (PAE)-mode, which are finally combined into a multi-mode-matching network (M3N); the M3N allows to tune the operation mode of the transistor independently of its operational frequency. The matching networks are designed to provide optimum matching for the power amplifier at three to six different operating frequencies for maximum-output-power- and maximum-PAE-mode. In the frequency range from 3.5 to 8.5 GHz, return losses of 10 dB and higher were measured and insertion losses of 0.5–1.9 dB were demonstrated for the output-matching networks. Further characterizations were performed to test the dependency on the RF-input power, and no changes were observed up to power levels of 34 dBm when cold-switched.

The implementation of stable, accurate, and wideband second-order microwave integrators (SOMIs) is presented in this paper. These designs of SOMIs are obtained by using different combinations of transmission line sections and shunt stubs in cascading. Particle swarm optimization (PSO), cuckoo search algorithm (CSA), and gravitational search algorithm (GSA) are applied to obtain the optimal values of the characteristic impedances of these line elements to approximate the magnitude response of ideal second-order integrator (SOI). The performance measure criteria for the proposed SOMIs are carried out based on magnitude response, absolute magnitude error, phase response, convergence rate, pole-zero plot, and improvement graph. The simulation results and statistical analysis demonstrate that GSA surpasses the PSO and CSA to approximate the ideal SOI in all state-of-the-art, that is eligible for wide-band microwave integrator. The designed SOMI is compact in size and suitable to cover microwave applications. The magnitude errors for the proposed SOMIs GSA based are as low as 4.9954 and 3.6573, respectively. The structure of the designed SOMI is implemented in the form of microstrip line on RT/Duroid substrate with dielectric constant 2.2 and having height 0.762 mm. The simulated and measured magnitude result agrees well with the ideal one in the frequency range of 3–15 GHz.

In this paper, a single-feed dual-frequency dual-linearly-polarized dielectric resonator antenna is proposed which finds application in two- way internet satellite system and modern radar system. In order to achieve dual linear polarization at distinct frequencies, two rectangular dielectric resonators of same dimensions are excited in ${\rm TE}^{x}_{\delta 11}$ and ${\rm TE}^{y}_{1\delta 1}$ modes by a narrow longitudinal and transverse slot, respectively, etched on the top wall of the substrate integrated waveguide. The −10 dB impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna is 6.76% for both the frequency bands. The antenna radiates along the broadside direction and the gain of the antenna varies from 5.37 to 6.24 dBi and 5.62–7.96 dBi across 8.14–8.71 GHz and 10.29–11.01 GHz, respectively.

Modern space communication systems often need high-power low-frequency (UHF, L-, S-, and C-band) low-pass filters (LPFs) with wide stopbands extending to Ka-band and beyond. Current design approaches frequently fail to meet these requirements completely. This paper proposes a new coaxial LPF concept and design methodology. The LPF consists of an array of cavity elements, which operate with transverse electromagnetic mode (TEM) and transverse magnetic (TM)-coupled resonances, and thus achieve a frequency response with a reflection zero at DC and transmission zeroes at targeted stopband locations. The design method is based on positioning the cavities in a quasi-periodic order, which efficiently spreads the transmission zeroes over the stopband, while keeping the characteristic impedance matched to the input/output interfaces over the passband. This design concept yields an ultra-wide, continuous and modal spurious-free stopband, while maintaining a low insertion loss, high peak power capacity, and low sensitivity to production tolerances.

Time-domain characterization of a microstrip patch antenna with circular corner truncation to achieve polarization reconfigurability is presented. By applying zero bias, forward bias, and reverse bias to the four PIN diodes, the antenna can radiate with linear polarization (LP), right hand circular polarization (RHCP), and left hand circular polarization (LHCP). The circular cuts reduce centre-frequency shift from linear to circularly polarized states, compared with conventional straight cuts. Time-domain simulation and measurement are carried out to show the switching characteristics of the proposed antenna, and it is established that satisfactory switching speed can be obtained using a simple low-cost driver circuit.

Design and development of 2 kW, 3 dB tandem hybrid coupler for the frequency range of 155–225 MHz has been presented in this paper. The developed 3 dB coupler is to be used in a prototype of Ion Cyclotron Resonance Frequency (ICRF) system of Tokamak, which has been developed to test the resilience of ICRF network during continuously variable RF load excursions. The 3 dB coupler divides the RF power between two antennae of the prototype and protects the RF source by coupling of reflected power to the isolated port. The developed coupler shows excellent coupling flatness of −3 ± 0.3 dB over 38% of fractional bandwidth and also provides voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) <1.3, isolation better than 32 dB and return loss better than 25 dB in full band. The presented work establishes a technique which can be useful for the development of high-power hybrid coupler in the range of high frequency (HF), very high frequency (VHF) and ultra high frequency (UHF).

In this paper, the main nonidealities appearing in polar transmitters will be addressed, together with several implementation considerations. Special attention will be paid to the role of AM modulation nonlinearity and parasitic AM-to-PM conversion, once architecture mechanisms such as time-delay mismatch between branches or limited bandwidth in the amplitude path are controlled. The device limiting factors for a highly efficient switched mode operation and a linear amplitude modulation will be identified. Some circuit design and implementation guidelines for the RF modulating stage and the envelope amplifier will be discussed, to finish with system-level analysis considerations under two-tone and real communication signal excitations.

In this paper, a new asymmetric structure is proposed for the dual-band unequal application, in which both open- and short-ended stubs are applied. Closed-form design equations are obtained for the proposed power divider using the modified even- and odd-mode analysis method. It is observed that the proposed power divider can operate at high frequency ratio from 2.3 to 3.7 and has a wide operating band. Besides, this proposed circuit can offer flexibility in fabrication. For verification, two power dividers operate at 1/2.5 GHz with different values of line impedance are fabricated and tested. There is good agreement between simulation and experimental results, validating the proposed design concepts.

In this paper, an ultra-wideband (UWB) filter with a notch band using T-shaped step impedance resonator loaded with cross-shaped open stubs has been presented. The notch band is formed by utilizing intrinsic zero. The characteristics of the new quad-mode resonator have been analyzed using odd-even mode analysis method. It can be shown that it is the intrinsic zero that generates the notch band. In addition, wide tunable notch band form 5–9.3 GHz can be achieved. A UWB filter with a notch band centered at 6.25 GHz using the proposed quad-mode resonator has been designed, fabricated, and tested. Experiment results show that the attenuation in notch frequency is >22 dB while the return loss of the simulation and measurement results are 22 dB/20 dB and 14.5 dB/11.2 dB in the lower and upper passband, respectively, which illustrate that the simulation and measurement results are in agreement.

This paper shows that the two most common impedance transformation networks for power amplifiers (PAs) can be designed to achieve optimum transformation at two frequencies. Hence, a larger bandwidth for the required impedance transformation ratio is achieved. A design procedure is proposed, which takes imperfections like losses into account. Furthermore, an analysis method is presented to estimate the maximum uncompressed output power of a PA with respect to frequency. Based on these results, a fully integrated PA with a dual-band impedance transformation network is designed and its functionality is proven by large signal measurement results. The amplifier covers the frequency band from 450 MHz to 1.2 GHz (3 dB bandwidth of the output power and efficiency), corresponding to a relative bandwidth of more than 100%. It delivers 23.7 dBm output power in the 1 dB compression point, having a power-added efficiency of 33%.

This paper presents a band-notched ultra-wideband bandpass filter by loading a short stub and an asymmetric step impedance stub in a uniform impedance resonator. The passband extends from 3.04 to 10.8 GHz frequency. The multimode resonator provides a sharp band edge with measured transmission zeros at 2.59 and 13 GHz. The later one is due to source load coupling. The passband insertion loss is within 1.5 dB. The embedded spiral resonator introduces a notch at 5.25 GHz with attenuation of 15 dB. The filter exhibits a wide stop band till 15 GHz. The in band and out of band performance obtained from full-wave electromagnetic simulation and measurement are in close agreement.

In this paper, a wideband circularly polarized corrugated G-shaped grounded ring slot antenna is presented. The proposed antenna structure is excited using a coplanar waveguide-fed monopole antenna, which is placed inside a corrugated G-shaped grounded ring. Due to the asymmetry in the ground plane, two orthogonal modes, having equal magnitude and out of phase by 90° are excited, resulting in circular polarization (CP). The generation of the CP in the proposed antenna structure is explained using thin dipole current element approximation. A prototype of the proposed antenna is fabricated and tested. The measured results exhibit a 3 dB axial ratio bandwidth of 37.6% (2.22–3.25 GHz), and reflection coefficient bandwidth (|S11| ≤ −10 dB) of 47.91% (2.13–3.47 GHz). Additionally, the design guidelines are also presented for G-shaped grounded ring slot antennas.

In this paper, triple-band stacked microstrip patch antennas (MPAs) are presented with wide impedance bandwidth and suppressed cross-polarization level. Triangular and circular shaped slots are embedded in the patch of antenna. Slot-loaded microstrip patches are fed with meandered microstrip line supported by a semi-ground plane structure. Triangular shaped slot-loaded MPA shows triple resonance at frequencies 2.2, 4.45, and 5.3 GHz having bandwidth of 45.9, 19.23, and 15.67%, respectively. Circular shaped slot-loaded MPA also shows triple resonance at frequencies 2.2, 4.42, and 5.38 GHz having bandwidth of 50.24, 33.21, and 13.43%, respectively. Using circular slot in place of triangular; bandwidth of the first and the second band is improved by 4.34 and 13.98%, respectively. Both the proposed antennas show an omnidirectional radiation pattern at all three resonance frequencies in the xz-plane with almost 0 dBi gain. Both the proposed antennas are fabricated on a FR-4 epoxy substrate and show a minimum level of cross-polarization radiations.

In this paper, we demonstrate the successful implementation of an onwafer noise parameters test set that employs an extended six-port network and a conventional noise figure analyzer. The necessary formulation that enables the calibration of the noise parameter test set as well as extraction of the noise wave correlation matrix of a two-port device under test (DUT) was tested for coaxial connector-type DUT measurement in an earlier work but not for onwafer-type DUT. Furthermore, we demonstrate the performance of this technique against data obtained from the well-known tuner method. Measurement carried out for very low-noise figure (2 dB) onwafer-type amplifier demonstrates the capability of our technique. The measured noise parameters show fluctuations in minimum noise figure, NFmin of ±0.1 dB, and in noise resistance Rn of about 2%. This test set is simple and fast leading to tremendous time- and cost-savings as well as a simplified procedure in onwafer noise parameters measurements.

We present a method to realize a low-power and high-speed digital-to-analog converter (DAC) for system-on-chip applications. The new method is a combination of binary-weighted current cells and R-2R ladder and is specially suited for modern BiCMOS technologies. A prototype 5 GS/s DAC is implemented in 0.13 μm SiGe BiCMOS technology. The DAC dissipates 26 mW and provides an SFDR higher than 48 dB for output frequencies up to 1 GHz.