Abstract
Broadband amplifiers are essential building blocks used in high data rate wireless, radar, and instrumentation systems, as well as in optical communication systems. Only a traveling-wave amplifier (TWA) provides sufficient bandwidth for broadband applications without reducing modern linearization techniques. TWA requires gate-line and drain-line termination, which can be implemented on- and off-chip. This article compares the performance of identical 0.13 μm CMOS TWAs, differing only in gate-line termination placement. Measurement results revealed that the designed TWAs with on- and off-chip termination have a bandwidth of 10 GHz with a maximum gain of 15 dB and a power-added efficiency (PAE) of 5%–22% in the whole operating frequency range. Placing the gate-line termination off-chip results in an S21 flatness reduction, compared to the gain of a TWA with on-chip termination. Gain fluctuation over frequency is reduced by 4–8 dB when the termination resistor is placed as an external circuit.
Highlights
Internet of Things (IoT), machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, software-defined radios (SDR), vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, and cloud-based services, all of which employ high-speed wireless data transmission, are currently in the spotlight of modern research, with the first of these concepts being integrated in the most common household items [1,2,3]
The power-added efficiency (PAE) is equal to a classical AB-class power amplifiers (PA) up to around 5 GHz
A comparison of traveling-wave amplifiers with on- and off-chip gate-line termination, which are suitable for modern high-bandwidth high-speed radio frequency systems, has been presented in this article
Summary
Internet of Things (IoT), machine-to-machine (M2M) communication, software-defined radios (SDR), vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems, and cloud-based services, all of which employ high-speed wireless data transmission, are currently in the spotlight of modern research, with the first of these concepts being integrated in the most common household items [1,2,3]. Broadband amplifiers are the essential building blocks used in high data rate wireless, radar, instrumentation, as well as optical communication systems [4]. The TWA provides sufficient bandwidth for broadband applications without reducing modern linearization techniques, such as analog or digital predistortion [6]. The mature deep submicron (0.35–0.11 μm) CMOS technology [7] provides a high price to performance ratio for high-speed active devices along with on-chip passive components, necessary when designing broadband amplifiers
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