A Compact Dual-mode CMOS Power Amplifier Covering both Sub-6GHz and mm-Wave Bands for 5G NR

This paper presents a dual-mode power amplifier (PA) that covers both the 5G FR1 and FR2 bands. By utilizing the common-mode (CM) path and differential-mode (DM) path simultaneously, this PA achieves 3.5GHz and 27GHz band coverage with only one amplifying stage and consequently compact layout. The proposed PA achieves a PAE
1dB
and P
1dB
of 30.9%/17.6dBm and 36.1%/15.3dBm, respectively, at 27GHz in DM and 3.5GHz in CM. The proposed PA exhibits a performance of -25.9dBc ACLR, 17% average PAE, and 12.4dBm average output power at -24.7dB EVM
RMS
with 64QAM 200MSym/s modulation signal at 26GHz in DM. Similarly, with 256QAM 50MSym/s modulation at 3.6GHz in CM, the PA demonstrates -35.6dBc ACLR, 22.5% average PAE, and 10.7dBm average power at -31.1dB EVM
RMS
. The PA is fabricated in 65nm CMOS process with chip area of only 0.32mm
²
.