A Continuous-Mode 23.5-41GHz Hybrid Class-F/F-l Power Amplifier with 46% Peak PAE for 5G Massive MIMO Applications

This paper presents a continuous-mode hybrid Class-F and inverse Class-F (i,e., Class-F/F-l) power amplifier (PA) to achieve high efficiency and wide bandwidth covering the potential 5G bands of 28, 37, and 39GHz. The proposed continuous-mode harmonically tuned output network provides the proper harmonic impedance terminations for the continuous Class-F and Class-F-l operation modes at lower and higher frequency bands, respectively. Moreover, both modes present high efficiency and deliver almost the same saturated power Psat with a Psat variation less-than 0.1dB. The proposed PA is implemented in a 45nm CMOS SOI process, achieving 46% peak PAE, 54.3 % Psat output power 1dB bandwidth (23.5GHz to 41GHz), and 51 % small-signal 3dB bandwidth (25.9GHz to 43.7GHz). Also, it achieves 43.4% PAE and 18.6dBm Psat at 27GHz, 40.2% PAE and 18.6dBm Psat at 37GHz, and 41.2% PAE and 18.5dBm Psat at 39GHz, respectively, outperforming reported mm-Wave silicon PAs at similar frequencies. This is the first demonstrated continuous-mode hybrid Class-F/F-l PA in CMOS to cover the 28, 37, and 39GHz mm-Wave 5G bands.