Design methodology for distributed power amplifier in software-defined radio applications

In this contribution a new design methodology for distributed power amplifiers is presented, based on vector current combination concept. The proposed technique, improving traditional drain line tapering approaches, proves to be particularly suitable in Software Defined Radio (SDR) and Cognitive Radio (CR) applications. In order to verify the feasibility of the proposed strategy, the design of a MMIC power amplifier is presented, featuring 17dB gain in the whole 1-3GHz band with an output power of 28dBm and a 23% of associated DC/RF conversion efficiency. The resulting chip size is 3.5×2mm².