In addition to other measurements such as the S-parameters, 1 dB compression point, and IP3, Power- added efficiency (PAE) is also one of the typical power amplifier (PA) measurements. These measurements are generally done during the development phase, troubleshooting, quality assurance validation, or production test of integrated circuits (IC’s). PAE is a measure of the power conversion efficiency of the power amplifier. It shows how much DC input power is converted to RF output power in the power amplifier and is calculated in percentage. Ideally, all the power supplied to the amplifier is converted to output power. However, in reality, it is not true because a certain amount of DC power is lost in the conversion process as dissipated heat. RF power amplifiers have PAE specifications that vary based on the design and classification of the amplifier.
PAE is an important performance parameter for the power amplifiers and can be calculated (in percentage) as shown in the figure below: