A Dual-Band 28/38-GHz Power Amplifier With Inter-Band Suppression in 22-nm FD-SOI CMOS for Multi-Standard mm-Wave 5G Communications

Abstract: In this article, we present a dual-band 28/38-GHz power amplifier (PA) with inter-band suppression for millimeter-wave 5G communications. The dual-band operation is achieved using a center-tapped transformer network with an extra resonator which can provide optimum load impedance of the transistor in the two bands and synthesize a short-circuit between the two bands. This feature suppresses the PA signal emissions in the inter band, commonly allocated for other applications. A design procedure is developed for the proposed matching network including physical limits on the quality factor and the coupling coefficient of the transformer. The PA is designed using a 22-nm fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) CMOS process. The transistor stacking and a four-path transformer parallel-series power combining techniques are used to achieve high output power using the low-voltage process. The PA achieves simulated performance of 22.6/22.0 dBm saturated output power, 19.8/20.0 dBm output power at 1-dB gain compression, and 33/32 % maximum power-added efficiency (PAE) at 28/38 GHz. The inter-band suppression is 6 dB at 33 GHz.