Analysis and design of high-power and efficient,millimeter-wave power amplifier systems using zero degree combiners |
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| Authors: | Wei Tai Mortez Abbasi |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA;2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA |
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| Abstract: | We present the analysis and design of high-power millimetre-wave power amplifier (PA) systems using zero-degree combiners (ZDCs). The methodology presented optimises the PA device sizing and the number of combined unit PAs based on device load pull simulations, driver power consumption analysis and loss analysis of the ZDC. Our analysis shows that an optimal number of N-way combined unit PAs leads to the highest power-added efficiency (PAE) for a given output power. To illustrate our design methodology, we designed a 1-W PA system at 45 GHz using a 45 nm silicon-on-insulator process and showed that an 8-way combined PA has the highest PAE that yields simulated output power of 30.6 dBm and 31% peak PAE. |
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| Keywords: | Power amplifier mm-waves integrated circuits silicon non-linear circuits |
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