Two High Power and Broadband Power Amplifiers using Transformer-based Resonating Peak Control Technique for E-Band Communication and Automotive Radars in 55-nm CMOS

Abstract

This paper presents two E-band millimeter-wave (mm-wave) transformer-based power amplifiers (PAs) implemented in 55-nm CMOS process, including a 1-way differential PA (PA1) and a 2-way differential PA (PA2). A transformer-based resonating peak control technique is proposed to realize broadband characteristic. The 1-way differential PA1 achieves a 3 dB bandwidth (BW <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-3dB</sub> ) of 16 GHz, a P <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">sat</sub> of 17 dBm and a peak PAE of 18.4%. The 2-way PA2 achieves a BW <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">-3dB</sub> of 14 GHz, a P <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">sat</sub> of 20 dBm and a PAE <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">MAX</sub> of 14.3%.