Title :
A high-Psat high-OP1dB high-power-density fully integrated Ka-band power amplifier in 0.18-µm CMOS
Author :
To-Po Wang ; Zong-Wei Li ; Ching-Yung Hsueh
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electron. Eng., Nat. Taipei Univ. of Technol., Taipei, Taiwan
Abstract :
A fully integrated 31-GHz power amplifier (PA) fabricated in 0.18-μm CMOS process is presented in this paper. This PA consists of two common-source stages. The first stage is the driver amplifier, and the second stage is the power amplifier. In order to achieve high output power, power cell with large device size is adopted in this design. To overcome the substrate loss, the thin-film microstrip (TFMS) lines are used in this work. In addition, the TFMS lines can provide large current capacity for PA operation. Operating at the 2.0-V supply voltage, this Ka-band PA achieves the measured 12.33-dBm saturation output power (Psat) with 8.24-dBm output 1-dB compression point (OP1dB) at 31 GHz. The input return loss (S11) and output return loss (S22) are -9.5 dB and -5.2 dB, respectively. The power density is 20.36 mW/mm2. According to authors´ knowledge, this 31-GHz PA achieves the highest Psat, highest OP1dB, and highest power density compared to other reported CMOS amplifiers above 30 GHz in Ka and Q band.
Keywords :
CMOS analogue integrated circuits; microstrip lines; millimetre wave power amplifiers; CMOS amplifiers; CMOS process; Ka-band power amplifier; PA operation; TFMS lines; common-source stages; compression point; current capacity; driver amplifier; frequency 31 GHz; input return loss; loss -5.2 dB; loss -9.5 dB; output return loss; power cell; power density; saturation output power; size 0.18 mum; substrate loss; supply voltage; thin-film microstrip lines; voltage 2.0 V; CMOS integrated circuits; Density measurement; Gain; Power amplifiers; Power generation; Power measurement; Semiconductor device measurement;
Conference_Titel :
Wireless Information Technology and Systems (ICWITS), 2012 IEEE International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Maui, HI
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4673-0947-9
DOI :
10.1109/ICWITS.2012.6417671
