Fully integrated high efficiency K-band PA in 0.18 µm CMOS technology

A fully integrated 2 stage K-band power amplifier is designed, fabricated and measured. The amplifier is realized utilizing standard 0.18 μm CMOS process. A novel simplified matching and bias network is used in order to reduce the input and output losses and to achieve a high output power and PAE. At 24 GHz, the measured results of the amplifier are, a small-signal power gain of 16.2 dB, a maximum output power of 17.5 dBm, 13.6 dBm of output power at 1 dB compression point and a peak PAE of 22.5 %. To the best of the author´s knowledge, this is the highest PAE ever reported for a CMOS power amplifier in this frequency range using 0.18 μm CMOS technology.