A High-Power 3P3T Cross Antenna Switch with Low Harmonic Distortion and Enhanced Isolation Using T-Type Pull-Down Path for Cellular Mobile Devices

Abstract

This paper presents a radio frequency (RF) triple pole triple throw 3P3T cross antenna switch for cellular mobile devices. The negative biasing scheme was applied to improve the power-handling capability and linearity of the switch by increasing the maximum tolerable voltage drop across the drain and source and reverse biasing the parasitic junction diodes. To avoid signal reflection through the antenna in off-state, all the antenna ports were equipped with 50-ohm termination to provide the pull-down path. Considering the simultaneous operation of antenna ports in different switch cases, the presented T-type pull-down path demonstrated improvement of isolation by over 15 dB. Using stacked switches, the 3P3T handled the input power level of over 35 dBm. The chip was manufactured in 65 nm complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) silicon on insulator (SOI) technology with a die size of 790 × 730 µm. The proposed structure achieved insertion loss, isolation, and voltage standing wave ratio (VSWR) of less than −0.9 dB, −40 dB, and 1.6, respectively, when the input signal was 3.8 GHz. The measured results prove the implemented switch shows the second and third harmonic distortion performances of less than −60 dBm when the input power level and frequency are 25 dBm and 3.8 GHz, respectively.

Keywords

• 3P3T
• harmonic distortion
• insertion loss
• power handling
• RF switch
• switching time