A fully integrated multi-standard power amplifier in 0.18 /spl mu/m CMOS for IEEE 802.11 a/b/g WLANs

In this paper, a fully integrated multistandard power amplifier in a standard 0.18 mum CMOS technology for IEEE 802.11 a/b/g WLAN applications is presented. Apart from the other power amplifiers for the 802.11 a/b/g standards, this PA adopts a broadband approach to cover both 2.4/5 GHz bands. A new broadband architecture used in this PA employing multiple gain compensation stages and low-Q resonators is also presented. The simulation results show that a three-stage cascode PA using this new architecture delivers 18/24 dB power gain for the 2.4/5 GHz band with a bandwidth larger than 3.5 GHz and an output 1 dB compression point of 14/18 dBm. The peak PAE is estimated to be 10/14% for 2.4/5 GHz band and the saturated power as 15/19 dBm. An experimental prototype PA was fabricated and the initial measurement results are included