Silicon-germanium BiCMOS HBT technology for wireless power amplifier applications

Author

Johnson, Jeffrey B. ; Joseph, Alvin J. ; Sheridan, David C. ; Maladi, Ramana M. ; Brandt, Per-Olof ; Persson, Jonas ; Andersson, Jesper ; Bjorneklett, Are ; Persson, Ulrika ; Abasi, Fariborz ; Tilly, Lars

Author_Institution

IBM Corp., Essex Junction, VT, USA

Volume

39

Issue

10

fYear

2004

Firstpage

1605

Lastpage

1614

Abstract

This paper discusses and illustrates the key device design issues for SiGe BiCMOS HBTs suitable for wireless power amplifier (PA) applications. Experimental results addressing ruggedness, ac performance, and safe operating area for high-breakdown SiGe HBTs built in several generations of BiCMOS technology are presented. Implications of recent high-performance SiGe HBT scaling achievements for BiCMOS technologies targeting wireless PA applications are considered. Circuit results for GSM, PCS, GPRS, and EDGE front-end modules have been obtained. A one-chip solution is demonstrated, including control circuitry and switching functionality, that supports all GPRS, PCS, and EDGE modes featuring output power at 33.8 dBm and overall power added efficiency of 37% withstanding voltage standing wave ratio conditions of 15:1.

Keywords

BiCMOS integrated circuits; Ge-Si alloys; UHF integrated circuits; UHF power amplifiers; cellular radio; heterojunction bipolar transistors; semiconductor materials; BiCMOS HBT technology; EDGE front-end modules; GPRS front-end modules; GSM front-end modules; PCS front-end modules; SiGe; SiGe HBT; control circuitry; control switching; silicon-germanium technology; wireless power amplifier; AC generators; BiCMOS integrated circuits; GSM; Germanium silicon alloys; Ground penetrating radar; Heterojunction bipolar transistors; Personal communication networks; Power amplifiers; Silicon germanium; Voltage control; BiCMOS; HBTs; SiGe; silicon-germanium technology; wireless power amplifiers;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9200

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/JSSC.2004.833570

Filename

1336988