Design of the Class-E Power Amplifier with Finite DC Feed Inductance under Maximum-Rating Constraints

Abstract

This paper proposes an analytical expression set to determine the maximum values of currents and voltages in the Class-E Power Amplifier (PA) with Finite DC-Feed Inductance (FDI) under the following assumptions—ideal components (e.g., inductors and capacitors with infinite quality factor), a switch with zero rise and fall commutation times, zero on-resistance, and infinite off-resistance, and an infinite loaded quality factor of the output resonant circuit. The developed expressions are the average supply current, the RMS (Root Mean Square) current through the DC-feed inductance, the peak voltage and current in the switch, the RMS current through the switch, the peak voltages of the output resonant circuit, and the peak voltage and current in the PA load. These equations were obtained from the circuit analysis of this ideal amplifier and curve-fitting tools. Furthermore, the proposed expressions are a useful tool to estimate the maximum ratings of the amplifier components. The accuracy of the expressions was analyzed by the circuit simulation of twelve ideal amplifiers, which were designed to meet a wide spectrum of application scenarios. The resulting Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) of the maximum-rating constraints estimation was 2.64%.