Reliability Evaluation of Class-E and Class-A Power Amplifiers With Nanoscaled CMOS Technology

摘要

Circuit reliability of class-E and class-A power amplifiers is investigated based on a newly developed degradation sub-circuit model. Measured degradation characteristics on the fabricated circuits agree well with the simulation predictions. Using this model, we have found that the class-E amplifier degrades faster than a class-A amplifier, due to a much higher stress level during switching. With a drastic decrease of PAE, a shorter lifetime is expected for a class-E amplifier.