Enhanced Wideband Active Load-Pull with a Vector Network Analyzer Using Modulated Excitations and Device Output Match Compensation

This work presents a wideband active load pull setup for active device characterization under modulated excitations. The setup, differently from approaches requiring full waveform acquisition capabilities, uses standard vector network analyzer measurements. The secants’ method is used to iteratively find the output injected signal to synthesize the target load profile. A linear pre-compensation of the large signal output match of the device under test is proposed in order to significantly improve convergence speed and stability of the method. Performance results for the proposed approach are reported for a power amplifier and a Gallium Nitride HEMT for a 80MHz modulation bandwidth in the 1–6 GHz range.