Development of 3kW at 325MHz solid-state RF power amplifier using four power amplifier modules

A high power solid-state RF power amplifier of 3kW at 325MHz has been developed using only four RF power amplifier modules of 850W power output each. The design and characterization of RF power modules have been presented. A four way Wilkinson power combiner adds the output of four power amplifier modules with a total transmission loss of less than 6%. The combined power amplifier has a power gain of 20.2dB at 1-dB compression point, and the corresponding output power is 2.8kW at 325MHz. The drain efficiency of the power amplifier is 65.3% at 3kW. All the harmonics of this amplifier are below −40dBc. The amplifier has better characteristics like fewer numbers of active devices per kilo watt, high efficiency, high gain, and ruggedness etc for RF accelerator applications.