Design of a SiGe Reconfigurable Power Amplifier for RF Applications: Device and Multi-standard Considerations

A low cost integrated reconfigurable power amplifier (PA), dedicated to multi-mode, multi-standard radio frequency front-end (RFFE), is proposed. Power considerations are taken into account in the design through the use of emitter ballasted HBT's and special care on the layout. The reconfigurable amplifier topology is presented, made up of two-stages independently controllable by biasing scheme. It allows the dynamic modification of the RF transistor quiescent current, to adapt both its linearity and its output power in order to fulfill several standards specifications. The PA uses 2.5 V supply voltage and was designed using a 0.25 mum SiGe BiCMOS technology.

[1]  M. G. Adlerstein.  Thermal stability of emitter ballasted HBT's , 1998 .

[2]  Xiangdong Zhang,et al.  A SiGe HBT power amplifier with 40% PAE for PCS CDMA applications , 2000, 2000 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium Digest (Cat. No.00CH37017).

[3]  A. Samelis,et al.  Efficiency improvement techniques at low power levels for linear CDMA and WCDMA power amplifiers , 2002, 2002 IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFIC) Symposium. Digest of Papers (Cat. No.02CH37280).

[4]  H. Nakano,et al.  1 W Ku-band AlGaAs/GaAs power HBT's with 72% peak power-added efficiency , 1995 .

[5]  M.F. Chang,et al.  A 3-V monolithic SiGe HBT power amplifier for dual-mode (CDMA/AMPS) cellular handset applications , 2000, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[6]  David Dening.  Setting bias points: for linear RF amplifiers , 2002 .

[7]  J. Rieh,et al.  Structural dependence of the thermal resistance of trench-isolated bipolar transistors , 2002, Proceedings of the Bipolar/BiCMOS Circuits and Technology Meeting.

[8]  Yann Deval,et al.  A SiGe Power Amplifier with Dynamic Bias for Efficient Power Control in UMTS/W-CDMA Applications , 2004 .

[9]  Y. Deval,et al.  PAE Enhancement Methodology for SiGe Power Amplifier in UMTS/W-CDMA Systems , 2006, 2006 IEEE North-East Workshop on Circuits and Systems.

[10]  Junxiong Deng,et al.  A high average-efficiency SiGe HBT power amplifier for WCDMA handset applications , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.