A class-E power amplifier for wireless biomedical systems

This letter presents the design, implementation and experimental results of a class-E power amplifier (PA) suitable for wireless biomedical sensor nodes (WBSNs) integrated into a wireless body area network (WBAN). A self-biased inverter is used as a preamplifier stage to provide a 50 %-duty-cycle square wave to drive the class-E PA. The design (PA with the preamplifier), which is fabricated in a 0.18-μm CMOS technology, achieves 40.2 % drain efficiency while output power is 14.7 dBm at 433 MHz under 1.2-V supply, as demonstrated by the experimental results.