A Q-band power amplifier with high-gain pre-driver and 18.7 dBm output power for fully integrated CMOS transmitters

A high-gain, Q-band power amplifier (PA) implemented in 45-nm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) CMOS is presented. The PA is designed for fully integrated radios and provides 30.7 dB of gain to allow the digital baseband to fully saturate the PA at 18.7 dBm output power. This is achieved with an overall power-added efficiency (PAE), including all pre-driver and impedance matching networks, of 18.1%. The raw PAE of the PA unit cell is 29%. This PA provides the highest reported gain of single CMOS PAs in the Q-band and one of the highest P_sat and raw PAE per PA cell. In addition the digital implementation of the pre-driver enabled the overall die area to be smaller than comparable Q-band PAs, with a core area of 0.12 mm².