A Broadband Power Amplifier Covering 14-36 GHz in 65-nm CMOS Technology

A fully integrated transformer-based power amplifier (PA) is designed in 65-nm CMOS technology. Transformer baluns and parallel capacitors are selected to form the compact matching networks suiting differential structure. To achieve enough power-added efficiency (PAE) and linearity, the amplifier is designed to be of class-AB type. And wideband operation is realized by applying the neutral capacitor technology and optimizing the impedance of output and input matching networks. Simulation results show that the amplifier’s 3-dB bandwidth covers 14 GHz to 36 GHz. And in the bandwidth, saturation output power reaches 19.8 dBm with 18%-42.75% PAE.