High frequency power amplifier with high efficiency and low distortion

Abstract

A high frequency amplifier containing: a constant envelope signal generation circuit for transforming an input signal to form two constant envelope signals where phases of the constant envelope signals correspond to an amplitude of an envelope of the input signal; two amplifying circuits for separately amplifying two constant envelope signals; and a power synthesizing circuit for synthesizing the first and second amplified signals to generate an amplified signal of the input electric signal, and reflecting remaining components of the first and second amplified signals which remaining components remain in the above synthesizing operation, toward the first and second amplifying circuits. Further, an input impedance of the power synthesizing circuit may be controlled by shifting phases of the above reflected components by respectively predetermined amounts, or by adaptively shifting phases of the above reflected components responding to an input level, so that a total efficiency of the high frequency amplifier is maximized. The high frequency amplifier may contain, instead of the above two amplifying circuits and the power synthesizing circuit, a circuit for inverting a phase of one of the two constant envelope signals; and a single-ended push-pull amplifier circuit for receiving the other of the two constant envelope signals, and an output of the phase inversion circuit, and synthesizing the received signals to generate an amplified signal of the input electric signal.