Broadband, Linear, and High-Efficiency Mm-Wave PAs in Silicon ― Overcoming Device Limitations by Architecture/Circuit Innovations

Mm-Wave 5G links and many emerging mission-critical DoD applications have recently stimulated major research efforts on next-generation mm-Wave power amplifiers (PAs) to deliver nearly "perfect" large-signal performance. Compared to compound semiconductors, silicon often exhibits inferior device-level capabilities on power density, gain, efficiency, linearity, and reliability. On the other hand, silicon technologies offer matured modeling, flexible back-end options, and extensive digital controls, making them a highly versatile and attractive platform for design innovations and system integrations. This paper reviews several recent silicon mm-Wave PAs from multiple research groups, which all leverage architecture/circuit innovations to overcome device limitations and radically advance the state of the art. These design explorations include Doherty/Outphasing active load modulation, continuous-mode operation, broadband harmonic tuning, nonlinearity cancellation, and power-DACs.

[1]  Fei Wang,et al.  4.8 A Highly Linear Super-Resolution Mixed-Signal Doherty Power Amplifier for High-Efficiency mm-Wave 5G Multi-Gb/s Communications , 2019, 2019 IEEE International Solid- State Circuits Conference - (ISSCC).

[2]  Christian Fager,et al.  Symmetrical Doherty Power Amplifier With Extended Efficiency Range , 2016, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.

[3]  Fei Wang,et al.  17.3 A 60GHz on-chip linear radiator with single-element 27.9dBm Psat and 33.1dBm peak EIRP using multifeed antenna for direct on-antenna power combining , 2017, 2017 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC).

[4]  Kwang-Jin Koh,et al.  Integrated Inverse Class-F Silicon Power Amplifiers for High Power Efficiency at Microwave and mm-Wave , 2016, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[5]  Hua Wang,et al.  A continuous-mode harmonically tuned 19-to-29.5GHz ultra-linear PA supporting 18Gb/s at 18.4% modulation PAE and 43.5% peak PAE , 2018, 2018 IEEE International Solid - State Circuits Conference - (ISSCC).

[6]  Marco Vigilante,et al.  A Wideband Class-AB Power Amplifier With 29–57-GHz AM–PM Compensation in 0.9-V 28-nm Bulk CMOS , 2018, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[7]  Kaushik Dasgupta,et al.  A 25 Gb/s 60 GHz digital power amplifier in 28nm CMOS , 2017, ESSCIRC 2017 - 43rd IEEE European Solid State Circuits Conference.

[8]  Fei Wang,et al.  2.1 A 28GHz/37GHz/39GHz multiband linear Doherty power amplifier for 5G massive MIMO applications , 2017, 2017 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC).

[9]  Paul J. Tasker,et al.  Continuous Mode Power Amplifier Design Using Harmonic Clipping Contours: Theory and Practice , 2014, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.

[10]  Chandrakanth Reddy Chappidi,et al.  Simultaneously Broadband and Back-Off Efficient mm-Wave PAs: A Multi-Port Network Synthesis Approach , 2018, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[11]  Narek Rostomyan,et al.  28 GHz Doherty Power Amplifier in CMOS SOI With 28% Back-Off PAE , 2018, IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters.

[12]  Hua Wang,et al.  A Continuous-Mode 23.5-41GHz Hybrid Class-F/F-l Power Amplifier with 46% Peak PAE for 5G Massive MIMO Applications , 2018, 2018 IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium (RFIC).

[13]  James Buckwalter,et al.  A high-efficiency 28GHz outphasing PA with 23dBm output power using a triaxial balun combiner , 2018, 2018 IEEE International Solid - State Circuits Conference - (ISSCC).

[14]  Ali Hajimiri,et al.  A 69-to-79GHz CMOS multiport PA/radiator with +35.7dBm CW EIRP and integrated PLL , 2018, 2018 IEEE International Solid - State Circuits Conference - (ISSCC).

[15]  Hua Wang,et al.  4.6 A mm-Wave 3-Way Linear Doherty Radiator with Multi Antenna Coupling and On-Antenna Current-Scaling Series Combiner for Deep Power Back-Off Efficiency Enhancement , 2019, 2019 IEEE International Solid- State Circuits Conference - (ISSCC).

[16]  Anding Zhu,et al.  Preparing Linearity and Efficiency for 5G: Digital Predistortion for Dual-Band Doherty Power Amplifiers with Mixed-Mode Carrier Aggregation , 2017, IEEE Microwave Magazine.

[17]  Hua Wang,et al.  A Linear High-Efficiency Millimeter-Wave CMOS Doherty Radiator Leveraging Multi-Feed On-Antenna Active Load Modulation , 2018, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[18]  Pawan Agarwal,et al.  A 28GHz 41%-PAE linear CMOS power amplifier using a transformer-based AM-PM distortion-correction technique for 5G phased arrays , 2018, 2018 IEEE International Solid - State Circuits Conference - (ISSCC).