A Ka-Band Power Amplifier With 14.2-dBm Power in 65-nm CMOS

This paper introduces a Ka-band power amplifier with 14.2-dBm Power. Multiple transformer-based matching networks are introduced to realize broadband matching and high power output. A 26–35GHz power amplifier is realized in a standard 65 nm CMOS process. The amplifier achieves 16.8 dB small signal gain, 14.2-dBm output 3-dB compression point (P3dB), and 11.8-dBm output 1-dB compression point (P1dB). The simulated input and output return losses within the operation band are −6dB and −9dB in the worst case, respectively.