A 1V 17.9dBm 60GHz power amplifier in standard 65nm CMOS

For point-to-point multi-Gb/s applications in mobile devices with single antennas, low-cost, highly integrated solutions are preferred, and CMOS technology is a candidate for mm-Wave SoC products. To provide users with nearly omni-directional links, the TX power requirement could be considerably high. Assuming a receiver with 7dB NF, and 1dBi antennas at both ends of the link, the required power to transmit a 60GHz signal over 1m distance is 10dBm. A power amplifier (PA) that is capable of delivering 13dBm OP1dB for a 3Gb/s QPSK signal is thus needed if 3dB power back-off is added. This paper presents a CMOS PA meeting these requirements.

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