Design of power-controlled class1 Bluetooth CMOS power amplifier

In this paper, an RF power amplifier intended for class 1 Bluetooth application is designed using 0.35 µm CMOS technology. A layout-aware macromodel for the BSIM3v3 MOSFET transistor for RF applications including substrate effect is investigated and used in this design. The model is validated for a 0.35 μm CMOS process using a transistor with total width of 90 μm and 18 fingers and it shows excellent agreement with the f_t and S-parameter measurement data up to 6 GHz. The effects of pads and bond wires are also taken into consideration during the design process of the PA. After post-layout simulations, the amplifier delivers an output power of 19 dBm with 33.7% PAE under 3.3 V supply. This amplifier has a power control feature; its two stage circuit utilizes a cascode configuration in its first stage in order to use its bias pin as a power control input for the amplifier. Using this method, the power control range can be decreased down to 1.4 dBm which satisfies the Bluetooth standard. The chip is fabricated and is currently under testing.