Gaussian Pulse Characterization of RF Power Amplifiers

This work presents a new RF power amplifier characterization technique based on a Gaussian pulse, which is shown to approximate the envelope of a multicarrier signal with 0.5% error around the peaks. The standard deviation of the Gaussian pulses is inversely proportional to the I/Q signal bandwidth. This test signal is shown to accurately capture nonlinear memory effects that result in gain dispersion after the peak power is reached. As an example, it is shown that the gain amplitude and phase can vary up to 2.3 dB and 6 degrees for a 10-W 3.75-GHz GaN power-amplifier evaluation board, depending on the I/Q signal bandwidth and peak power level.