A highly integrated RF frontend module including Doherty PA, LNA and switch for high SHF wide-band massive MIMO in 5G

A highly integrated RF frontend module including a three-stage power amplifier (PA), a two-stage low noise amplifier (LNA) and a switch (SW) is presented for high SHF wide-band massive MIMO in 5G. In order to achieve efficient operation over wide-band frequency, Doherty PA configuration using a parasitic output capacitance neutralization technique is proposed for final stage PA. To improve LNA's gain flatness over wide frequency band, two R-LC stabilization circuits with different resonance frequencies are proposed. They are fabricated with 0.15-μm GaAs process, and integrated into a 5 × 5 mm2 QFN package. The state-of-the-art measured results show that final stage PA and three-stage PA achieve a drain efficiency (DE) at 8dB back-off of more than 22 % and 12 %, respectively, and a two-stage LNA achieves a noise figure (NF) of less than 1.4dB over 14.5–15.0 GHz.