A 28-GHz class-J Power Amplifier with 18-dBm output power and 35 peak PAE in 120-nm SiGe BiCMOS

摘要

A 28-GHz Power Amplifier (PA) designed in 120-nm SiGe BiCMOS for potential use in mobile millimeter-wave phased arrays is presented in this paper. The core of the PA is a cascode amplifier operated in class-J mode. A multi-harmonic load-pull analysis was used to determine the optimum harmonic output impedances (up to third harmonic) resulting in improved efficiency. The PA has a measured 15.3-dB small signal gain, 18.6-dBm saturated output power and 35.3% peak power added efficiency (PAE) at 28GHz. At 1-dB compression the PA has a 15.5-dBm output power and 31.5% PAE.