Patent ID: 7936212

Claim:
A power amplifier circuit, comprising: an input node configured to receive an input signal; an unequal power splitter coupled to the input node and configured to split the input signal using an unequal power split and to provide a first power level signal to a first output node and a second power level signal to a second output node, wherein the second power level signal has a different power level than the first power level signal; a first amplifier path coupled to the first output node of the unequal power splitter and including a first transistor amplifier configured to receive and amplify the first power level signal; a second amplifier path coupled to the second output node of the unequal power splitter and including a second transistor amplifier configured to receive and amplify the second power level signal, wherein the second transistor amplifier is configured to turn on at a different power level of the input signal than the first transistor amplifier; an unequal combiner configured to receive and combine the amplified first power level signal from the first amplifier path and the amplified second power level signal from the second amplifier path; and a transformer coupled to an output of the unequal combiner.