A highly integrated dual band SiGe BiCMOS power amplifier that simplifies dual-band WLAN and MIMO front-end circuit designs

A highly integrated SiGe BiCMOS power amplifier for dual-band WLAN applications is presented. The PA has 2 and 3 stages of amplification for the ‘b/g’ and ‘a’ band, respectively, and integrates the input/output matching network, out-of-band rejection filter, power detector, and bias control. The die area is 1.7 × 1.6 mm². The b/g amplifier achieves 28 dB gain with 19.5 dBm output power at 3% EVM and 185mA and harmonics of <−45dBm/Mhz. The a-band amplifier achieves 30 dB gain with 3% EVM at 19.0 dBm output with 220mA of current and harmonics < −50 dBm/MHz. The reported PA linearity, out-of-band rejection, and integration level exceeds previously reported WLAN dual-band SiGe PA designs.