A Fully Integrated High Linearity CMOS Dual-Band Power Amplifier for WLAN Applications in 55-Nm CMOS

Abstract

This paper presents a dual-band fully integrated high linearity CMOS power amplifier (PA). The PA employs a reconfigurable transformer in the input matching network to achieve low reflection coefficient across both bands, demonstrating significant flexibility in the design of dual-band power amplifiers with high output powers. Additionally, a detailed design methodology for the dual-band matching network is introduced. By utilizing this methodology, the PA has been designed using 55 nm CMOS technology. For continuous-wave operation, the PA achieves a saturated power (Psat) of 28.03 dBm and 27.5–28.2 dBm, with power-added efficiency (PAE) of 33.2% and 24.6–31.1%, in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz WLAN bands, respectively. Concurrently, the PA power cells, which employ multi-gate transistor (MGTR) technology, achieve an intermodulation distortion (IMD3) of below 30 dBc at an output power of 15 dBm in both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz WLAN bands. The proposed PA outperforms other dual-band or multi-band PAs in terms of output power and exhibits great potential for WLAN applications.

Keywords

• CMOS power amplifier
• dual band
• transformer
• wireless local area network (WLAN)