Research And Design Of CMOS Ultra-broadband RF Power Amplifier

The radio frequency (RF) power amplifier (PA) plays a critical role in varioussystem applications, such as the wireless/mobile communication system, radar,satellite and other systems. There has been a great trend for the RF transceiver to befabricated in CMOS process with its characteristics of low cost, multi-standard, andwideband. However, currently it still remains some problems and challenges in designof RF PAs based on the CMOS technology. In recent years, with the development ofadvanced technology, the research on CMOS RF PA has also made a greatbreakthrough.In this paper, we mainly discuss some issues of ultra-broadband PAs andcomplete the circuit design, simulation and test in CMOS process. Firstly, itintroduces the background and significance of the ultra-broadband PA, describing theadvantages and problems faced in the design of RF PAs based on the CMOStechnology. Then the basic principle and technology of RF PAs are summarized,including the classifications, design parameters and linearization method, especiallyon the broadband matching technology used currently. Finally, a three-stagesingle-ended CMOS ultra-broadband RF PA is proposed. The input matching of thisPA is realized by the bias circuit in the first stage with no extra matching devices, andthe output matching is realized by the resistor feedback, thus saving a lot of chip area.The design process of the circuit is described in details, and the calculation formula,simulation and on-wafer measurement results are also presented.A0.051.5GHz CMOS ultra-broadband RF PA with good performance isproposed using the GLOBALFOUNDRIES0.18μm CMOS process, which issimulated and optimized by the Cadence software. With the power supply of3.3V, itachieves a gain of more than20dB. The input and output return loss is around20dBand15dB, respectively. At433MHz and900MHz, which is the typical applicationfrequency of RFID and GSM-R, this PA demonstrates the saturation output power of20.5dBm and19.5dBm, and PAE of27%and19.5%, respectively. The test resultsmeet well with the simulation results, which verify the ideas proposed in this paper.