Abstract
The experimental characterization and measurement of the frequency-tunable RF power amplifier is the subject of this chapter. The frequency-tunable behavior could not be observed in the characterization of the integrated circuit at 3.7 and 5.2 GHz because of the low coupling factor of the integrated coupled inductors. A hybrid implementation using an integrated stand-alone CMOS power amplifier designed for test purposes, a discrete commercial RF transformer, and a discrete bipolar transistor to control the current in the secondary winding of the transformer was carried out. The circuit was designed for operation at 200 and 300 MHz. The measurements have shown that at 200 MHz a relative improvement in efficiency of a factor of 1.4 was achieved. Moreover, less distortion was generated with the proposed tunable output matching network. The hybrid implementation allowed us to demonstrate the feasibility of the frequency-tunable RF power amplifier based on coupled inductors.
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Notes
- 1.
In our case, we can say that the open-only pad de-embedding method used was enough because the coupling factor predicted by the 2.5D electromagnetic simulator was very close to the measured value.
- 2.
In triple well processes, the deep n-well is used as an RF isolation strategy for n-type devices [4].
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Dal Fabbro, P.A., Kayal, M. (2010). Measurement Results for the Frequency-Tunable CMOS RF Power Amplifier. In: Linear CMOS RF Power Amplifiers for Wireless Applications. Analog Circuits and Signal Processing. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9361-5_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9361-5_7
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