Title
A Millimeter-Wave CMOS Series-Doherty Power Amplifier With Post-Silicon Inter-Stage Passive Validation
Author
Pashaeifar, M. (TU Delft Electronics) 
de Vreede, L.C.N. (TU Delft Electronics)
Alavi, S.M. (TU Delft Electronics)
Date
2022
Abstract
This article presents a wideband series-Doherty power amplifier (SDPA) for millimeter-wave (mm-wave) fifth-generation (5G) applications. It features a compact two-step impedance inverting-based series-Doherty power combiner that provides broadband close-to-perfect power back-off (PBO) efficiency enhancement. The amplitude-to-amplitude (AM-AM)/amplitude-to-phase (AM-PM) performance of the load-modulated Doherty power amplifier for broadband operation is analyzed. We also devise a post-silicon inter-stage passive validation (PSIV) approach to evaluate the mm-wave chip prototype utilizing the embedded voltage root mean square detectors. The proposed SDPA is realized in a 40-nm bulk CMOS, and it delivers 20.4 dBm PSAT with 39.1%/34% PAE at 0-/6-dB PBO. Over a 23.5-30 GHz band, its PAE is >24% at 6-dB PBO. At 27 GHz, applying a '2 GHz 16-quadratic-amplitude modulation (QAM) orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM)' signal, the proposed SDPA generates 10.2 dBm average power with 18.9% average PAE. The average error vector magnitude is better than -24.5 dB without digital predistortion for a '400-MHz 64-QAM OFDM' signal while generating an average output power of 8.8 dBm with 15% PAE. The AM-AM/AM-PM of the realized SDPA is investigated by employing a '50-MHz 64-QAM OFDM' signal, validating our analysis and showing that the linearity limitation of DPAs is systematic and predictable. Utilizing the proposed PSIV approach, the frequency response of the input/inter-stage passive circuits is measured, indicating an excellent agreement with 3-D electromagnetic (EM) simulation results.
Subject
Doherty power amplifier (DPA)
impedance inverter
power amplifier (PA)
root mean square (rms) detector
series-DPA (SDPA)
transformer
wideband
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http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:4eda24fd-6604-469b-9032-a8e1f9377660
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1109/JSSC.2022.3175685
Embargo date
2023-07-01
ISSN
0018-9200
Source
IEEE Journal of Solid State Circuits, 57 (10), 2999-3013
Bibliographical note
Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.
Part of collection
Institutional Repository
Document type
journal article
Rights
© 2022 M. Pashaeifar, L.C.N. de Vreede, S.M. Alavi