A class-G dual-supply switched-capacitor power amplifier in 65nm CMOS

Abstract

A digitally-controlled switched-capacitor RF power amplifier (SCPA) that uses a dual-supply voltage, class-G architecture is implemented in 65nm CMOS. It implements signal envelope digital-to-analog conversion using switching functions controlled by digital logic to achieve superior efficiency and linearity at output power backoff. The SCPA delivers a peak (average) output power of 24.3 (16.8) dBm with a peak (average) PAE of 44% (33%) for an IEEE 802.11g signal (64 QAM OFDM) with a measured EVM of 2.9 % in the 2.4 GHz band. No digital predistortion was necessary because of the superior linearity.