Pulse power device characterization for amplifier design

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Bi-polar Si transistors optimized for pulse conditions is still the most popular choice asamplification element in the final stages of solid-state radar amplifiers in L and S band. With theradar market being small, the design data for these devices is normally fairly limited and it is up tothe designers to thoroughly characterize them for their designs. This is normally done through loadpullexperiments. Professional automated load-pull equipment is very expensive especially at thehigher power levels. In spite of being automated and under computer control, load-pull exercisesstill is very time consuming and as such expensive. For small companies that only occasionally needto design such amplifiers it is not economically viable to acquire such equipment and differentstrategies have to be found to stay competitive.This report investigates such a strategy and its implementation.A procedure to quickly and accurately characterize such devices was developed and two amplifierswere designed and build with this procedure and compared to their traditional counterparts forverification. The results were very promising and with a bit more work, the technique can likely beused to characterize these devices for design work outside of the parameters designated by themanufacturers.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University