A High-Power 24–40-GHz Transmit–Receive Front End for Phased Arrays in 45-nm CMOS SOI

Abstract

This article presents a dual-band millimeter-wave front end in 45-nm CMOS silicon-on-insulator (SOI) for 5G applications. The front end is composed of a low-noise amplifier (LNA), power amplifier (PA), and a single-pole double-throw (SPDT) switch. A double-tuned PA is used and is based on a two-stage stacked amplifier with a reconfigurable load using SOI switches, so as to achieve an optimal load for both 28- and 39-GHz 5G NR bands. A wideband series-shunt switch is also developed with high power handling (P1dB >22 dBm) and $P_{\mathrm {sat}}$ is > 18.8 dBm and the peak PAE is 18% at 24–30 GHz and includes the switch loss and compression. For high-band operation, the gain at 36–40 GHz is 13.6 ± 1.5 dB with $P_{\mathrm {sat}} > 18$ dBm. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first front end that covers both the 24–28- and 37–40-GHz 5G bands with high output power and low-NF. Application areas are in multistandard base stations and small cells.