A 24–30 GHz Power Amplifier with >20-dBm Psat and <0.1-dB AM-AM Distortion for 5G Applications in 130-nm SiGe BiCMOS

This paper presents a power amplifier (PA) designed as a part of a transceiver front-end fabricated in 130-nm SiGe BiCMOS. The PA shares its output antenna port with a low noise amplifier using a low-loss transmission/reception switch. The output matching network of the PA is designed to provide high output power, low AM-AM distortion, and uniform performance over frequencies in the range of 24.25–29.5 GHz. Measurements of the front-end in TX mode demonstrate peak S21 of 30.3 dB at 26.7 GHz, S21 3-dB bandwidth of 9.8 GHz from 22.2 to 32.0 GHz, and saturated output power (Psat) above 20 dBm with power-added efficiency (PAE) above 22% from 24 to 30 GHz. For a 64-QAM 400 MHz bandwidth orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signal, −25 dBc error vector magnitude (EVM) is measured at an average output power of 12.3 dBm and average PAE of 8.8%. The PA achieves a competitive ITRS FoM of 92.9.