An adaptive class-E power amplifier with improvement in efficiency, reliability and process variation tolerance

Author

Banerjee, Adrish ; Chatterjee, Avhishek

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Georgia Inst. of Technol., Atlanta, GA, USA

fYear

2013

fDate

19-23 May 2013

Firstpage

745

Lastpage

748

Abstract

Integrated power amplifiers in RF communication systems suffer from efficiency reduction with power back-off, performance degradation due to process variation and reliability issues due to high signal levels. Design of a dynamically adaptive class-E switching power amplifier with duty cycle modulation is proposed in this paper. It uses an LC tuning circuit with a variable capacitor that improves efficiency, reliability and process variation tolerance compared to traditional class-E power amplifiers. The proposed power amplifier is designed in 65nm CMOS process for 2.4 GHz carrier frequency. Simulation results show significant increase in efficiency at lower power levels, reduction in peak drain voltage, which improves reliability, and mitigation of process variation effects.

Keywords

CMOS analogue integrated circuits; capacitors; power amplifiers; radiofrequency amplifiers; reliability; CMOS process; LC tuning circuit; RF communication systems; duty cycle modulation; dynamic adaptive class-E switching power amplifier; frequency 2.4 GHz; high signal levels; integrated power amplifiers; process variation tolerance; reliability improvement; size 65 nm; variable capacitor; Capacitors; Inductors; MOS devices; Reliability; Switches; Switching circuits; Tuning;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), 2013 IEEE International Symposium on

Conference_Location

Beijing

ISSN

0271-4302

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-5760-9

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ISCAS.2013.6571954

Filename

6571954