A 1W, 900MHz class-F RF power amplifier with 56% PAE in 0.18-um CMOS technology

The poor passive devices in a CMOS process and low breakdown oxide voltage of CMOS power transistor are major challenging issues in design and implementation of high power PAs, specially in deep sub-micron CMOS technology. In order to alleviate these problems, a thick oxide cascode CMOS PA with new matching network configuration is presented. The designed power amplifier exhibits a power-added efficiency (PAE) of 56% at the output frequency band of 900 MHz and maximum power of 29.8 dBm. The designed PA is implemented in Agilent ADS environment using 0.18 um TSMC CMOS technology.