A 28GHz Two-Way Current Combining Stacked-FET Power Amplifier in 22nm FD-SOI
 
A 28GHz Two-Way Current Combining Stacked-FET Power Amplifier in 22nm FD-SOI ■
 
Zhiwei Zong, Zhiwei Zong, Zhiwei Zong, Xinyan Tang, Xinyan Tang, Xinyan Tang, Johan Nguyen, Johan Nguyen, Johan Nguyen, Khaled Khalaf, Khaled Khalaf, Khaled Khalaf, Giovanni Mangraviti, Giovanni Mangraviti, Giovanni Mangraviti, Yao Liu, Yao Liu, Yao Liu, Piet Wambacq, Piet Wambacq, Piet Wambacq
 
Abstract ■

We present a two-way current combining power amplifier (PA) for 28GHz wireless communication. To boost the saturated output power (PSAT) and maintain a high power-added efficiency (PAE), a differential 3-stacked transistors structure is used for the unit PA cell. The stability factor and the PAE are improved with capacitive neutralization and shunt inductor intermediate node matching. Reliability issues under a 2.4V supply voltage are relieved with properly designed biasing and gate capacitances. The PA is implemented in a 22nm FD-SOI technology with a chip core area of 0.21 mm2, Measurement results show that the PA achieves a power gain of 27dB and a PSAT of 21.7dBm with a maximum PAE of 27.1\% at 28GHz. The output 1dB compression point (P1aB) is 19.1 dBm. Measured PAE at P1dB and 6dB power back-off are 23\% and 10.3\%, respectively.