A X-Band 28 dBm Fully Integrated Power Amplifier with 23 dB Gain

Author

JianKang Li ; Yong-Zhong Xiong ; Yihu Li ; Wen Wu

Author_Institution

Nanjing Univ. of Sci. & Technol., Nanjing, China

fYear

2013

fDate

13-16 Oct. 2013

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

4

Abstract

A 8-12 GHz fully monolithic transformer-coupled cascode power amplifier (PA) with the chip size of 2 × 2 mm² fabricated using the 0.25-μm SiGe:BiCMOS technology is presented in this paper. Through circuit/layout co-design, the distributed capacitor structure which is connected to the base of cascode transistor is proposed to reduce the base connection inductance for solving circuit instability and improving the gain in the design. Moreover, the PA features a three-stage cascode architecture that includes both high-speed (low breakdown voltage) and high breakdown voltage (low-speed) SiGe transistors. The proposed PA attained a measured small signal gain of 27.6-29.6 dB from 7.7 to 12 GHz with a 5.0 V dc supply. A 28 dBm maximum output power with an 18.5% power-added efficiency at 10 GHz have also been achieved.

Keywords

BiCMOS integrated circuits; bipolar transistors; integrated circuit layout; monolithic integrated circuits; power amplifiers; semiconductor device breakdown; silicon compounds; BiCMOS technology; SiGe; X-band; base connection inductance; breakdown voltage; cascode transistor; circuit instability; circuit/layout codesign; distributed capacitor structure; frequency 8 GHz to 12 GHz; fully integrated power amplifier; fully monolithic transformer-coupled cascode power amplifier; gain 23 dB; power-added efficiency; silicon germanide transistors; size 0.25 mum; small signal gain; three-stage cascode architecture; Capacitors; Gain; Inductance; Power amplifiers; Power generation; Silicon germanium; Transistors;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Compound Semiconductor Integrated Circuit Symposium (CSICS), 2013 IEEE

Conference_Location

Monterey, CA

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CSICS.2013.6659209

Filename

6659209