TY - JOUR
T1 - A 42-62 GHz Transformer-Based Broadband mm-Wave InP PA with Second-Harmonic Waveform Engineering and Enhanced Linearity
AU - Liu, Zheng
AU - Sharma, Tushar
AU - Chappidi, Chandrakanth Reddy
AU - Venkatesh, Suresh
AU - Yu, Yiming
AU - Sengupta, Kaushik
N1 - Funding Information:
ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to acknowledge the DARPA Young Faculty Award for support and Dr. Tim Hancock, Program Manager, at DARPA. They would like to thank Dr. Miguel Urteaga, Teledyne Scientific, for foundry support and all members of the IMRL lab for technical discussions. They would also like to thank Qualcomm and Princeton’s Dean Innovation Fund for Industrial Collaboration for support, DURIP grants from the Office of Naval Research and Army Research Office, and Dr. Jeremy Dunworth for technical discussions.
Publisher Copyright:
© 1963-2012 IEEE.
PY - 2021/1
Y1 - 2021/1
N2 - Indium phosphide (InP) heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) with f-{t}/f-{max} of 350/675 GHz are studied and explored for a linear, high efficiency and broadband power amplifiers (PAs) at mm-wave frequencies. Unlike the conventional transmission-like-based design, this article presents a compact, broadband transformer-based power combining and impedance matching using the waveform engineering approach. We present, for the first time, mm-wave (40-60 GHz) InP topologies incorporating the following: 1) on-chip transformer for broadband, efficient and compact impedance matching and power combining; 2) synthesis of optimal second-harmonic impedance through transformer center tap to achieve high-efficiency differential PA operation; and 3) biasing techniques to reduce AM-PM distortion for linearity enhancement. This work reports a transformer-based push-pull InP PA in 0.25~mu text{m} technology across 42-62 GHz demonstrating a peak power added efficiency (PAE) of 39.5% and peak P-{text{sat}} of 20.6 dBm. The PA supports 4 GHz bandwidth at 52 GHz with an EVM of -22.9 dB and an adjacent channel leakage ratio (ACLR) of -32 dBc for an 8 Gb/s QPSK signal at 13.3 dBm average output power. This work presents one of the highest efficiency with wide bandwidth and highest linearity mm-wave PAs in integrated technology.
AB - Indium phosphide (InP) heterojunction bipolar transistors (HBTs) with f-{t}/f-{max} of 350/675 GHz are studied and explored for a linear, high efficiency and broadband power amplifiers (PAs) at mm-wave frequencies. Unlike the conventional transmission-like-based design, this article presents a compact, broadband transformer-based power combining and impedance matching using the waveform engineering approach. We present, for the first time, mm-wave (40-60 GHz) InP topologies incorporating the following: 1) on-chip transformer for broadband, efficient and compact impedance matching and power combining; 2) synthesis of optimal second-harmonic impedance through transformer center tap to achieve high-efficiency differential PA operation; and 3) biasing techniques to reduce AM-PM distortion for linearity enhancement. This work reports a transformer-based push-pull InP PA in 0.25~mu text{m} technology across 42-62 GHz demonstrating a peak power added efficiency (PAE) of 39.5% and peak P-{text{sat}} of 20.6 dBm. The PA supports 4 GHz bandwidth at 52 GHz with an EVM of -22.9 dB and an adjacent channel leakage ratio (ACLR) of -32 dBc for an 8 Gb/s QPSK signal at 13.3 dBm average output power. This work presents one of the highest efficiency with wide bandwidth and highest linearity mm-wave PAs in integrated technology.
KW - 5G
KW - Broadband
KW - harmonic waveform engineering
KW - heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT)
KW - high efficiency
KW - indium phosphide (InP)
KW - linearity enhancement
KW - millimeter wave
KW - power amplifier (PA)
KW - push-pull
KW - transformer
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85097363263&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85097363263&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TMTT.2020.3037092
DO - 10.1109/TMTT.2020.3037092
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85097363263
SN - 0018-9480
VL - 69
SP - 756
EP - 773
JO - IRE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques
JF - IRE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques
IS - 1
M1 - 9275386
ER -