A SiGe bipolar-MOSFET cascode power amplifier with improved linearity for low-power broadband wireless applications

Ruili Wu, Jerry Lopez, Yan Li, Donald Y.C. Lie

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

In this paper, a novel bipolar-MOSFET (BiFET) cascode differential power amplifier (PA) is proposed and fabricated, showing strong improvement on the linearity performances over those of the conventional bipolar-bipolar cascode PA. The two-stage differential BiFET cascode PA achieves Pout of 25.7 dBm with 52.1% power-added-efficiency (PAE) in the continuous wave (CW) measurement at 900 MHz. A conventional bipolar-bipolar cascode PA is designed in a similar configuration to compare with the BiFET cascode PA performances, using the LTE 16QAM 5/20 MHz signals as inputs. The measurement results show that the BiFET cascode PA significantly improves the linearity performances over those of the conventional bipolar-bipolar cascode PA in terms of error vector magnitude (EVM), adjacent channel leakage ratio (ACLR) and the transmission output spectra. These linearity improvements are more visible at lower P out levels, and become particularly striking as the signal bandwidth increases to 20 MHz. The SiGe PAs are designed and fabricated in a 0.35-m SiGe BiCMOS technology with through-wafer-vias (TWVs) for low-power broadband wireless applications.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationPAWR 2013 - Proceedings
Subtitle of host publication2013 IEEE Topical Conference on Power Amplifiers for Wireless and Radio Applications - 2013 IEEE Radio and Wireless Week, RWW 2013
Pages22-24
Number of pages3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2013
Event2013 IEEE Topical Conference on Power Amplifiers for Wireless and Radio Applications, PAWR 2013 - 2013 7th IEEE Radio and Wireless Week, RWW 2013 - Austin, TX, United States
Duration: Jan 20 2013Jan 23 2013

Publication series

NamePAWR 2013 - Proceedings: 2013 IEEE Topical Conference on Power Amplifiers for Wireless and Radio Applications - 2013 IEEE Radio and Wireless Week, RWW 2013

Conference

Conference2013 IEEE Topical Conference on Power Amplifiers for Wireless and Radio Applications, PAWR 2013 - 2013 7th IEEE Radio and Wireless Week, RWW 2013
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityAustin, TX
Period01/20/1301/23/13

Keywords

  • Bipolar-MOSFET (BiFET)
  • LTE
  • SiGe BiCMOS PA
  • cascode power amplifier (PA)
  • linearity

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