A Wideband CMOS Power Amplifier with Integrated Digital Linearizer and Tunable Transformer

This paper presents a fully integrated wideband CMOS power amplifier (PA) with Digitally Assisted Wideband Pre-Distorter (DAWPD) and tunable transformer. The DAWPD is implemented at the driver amplifier to establish a pre-distorter linearizing mechanism across a wide frequency bandwidth. The DAWPD mechanism has an integrated Digital Linearizer (DL), which is controlled via digital bits. The DAWPD-PA also integrated with a tunable transformer employed at its output matching network to achieve an optimum efficiency and output power performance across a wideband frequency. The DAWPD-PA is fabricated in CMOS 130 nm process and has an operating bandwidth of 1 GHz from 1.7 to 2.7 GHz. The DAWPD-PA delivers a maximum output power of 27 to 28 dBm with peak PAE of 38.8 to 41.3%. The gain achieved is 26.9 to 29.7 dB across the frequency. The DAWPD-PA is further tested with a 20 MHz LTE modulated signal and the linear output power and PAE achieved across the operating frequency are 24.0 to 25.1 dBm and 34.5 to 38.8%.