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This study presents an automated high-accuracy optimization approach for designing high-performance radio frequency high power amplifiers (HPAs). The amplifier is designed by applying a top-down pruning optimization approach that automatically converts the given HPA with lumped elements (LEs) to the HPA with distributed elements (DEs). Firstly, the lumped element HPA is designed based on a bottom-up optimization presented in Kouhalvandi et al. (2019 11th international conference on electrical and electronics engineering (ELECO), pp 510–513, 2019, 10.23919/ELECO47770.2019.8990407), then the LE amplifier is decomposed into basic unit cells that consist of one capacitor (C) and one inductor (L). For each LC unit, a suitable transmission line cell network is selected from predefined models by considering the maximum a posterior (MAP) metric. The component values of the resulting HPA design with DEs are optimized using Bayesian Optimization to achieve the desired design specifications. The overall proposed automated optimization accelerates the design process and outperforms the amplifier’s specifications that is constructed with DEs, automatically. The optimization starts with LE amplifier designs for keeping high linear gain performance and is converted to the HPA with transmission lines for having ready to fabricate circuit design. The proposed approach is validated by designing three HPAs with GaN HEMT from 1.8 to 2.2 GHz operational band frequency with drain efficiency more than 50% and with minimum linear power gain of 14.5 dB in all band frequency.

Optimizations have gained much consideration from the researchers working in the domains of analog and radio frequency (RF), recently. Dealing with highly nonlinear behavior of active components and aiming to meet design specifications are common issues in all nonlinear circuit designs. As a consequence and accordingly, many studies have been conducted on diverse optimization methods and algorithms for tackling the design problems and meeting optimal solutions with high accuracy. The main purpose of this article is to provide a comprehensive and systematic literature review for the optimization approaches applied by the researchers for designing various analog and microwave circuits. We focus on considering the existing optimization methods from the newly published optimization methods in the last decade. Thus, this study can guide and enlighten complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor analog and RF microwave circuit designers to consider optimization methods commonly used in both areas and to expand conventional performance figures used in their area.