A Gain Control Low Power CMOS Power Amplifier for Ultra Wideband Applications

This paper presents a gain control, low power, wideband power amplifier operating in the lower band frequency of 3.1 GHz to 4.8 GHz for UWB applications. This design was implemented in UMC 0.13 mum MMRF CMOS technology with an on-chip transformer and biasing circuitry. This PA works in the class A region and has high linearity with power consumption as low as 32 mV from a 1.2 V supply voltage. The differential common-source with single ended output topology provides a good isolation and good matching to 50 Omega at the output port. This PA delivers a total gain of 16 dB with a 2 dB step level for on-chip gain control circuitry.