A LDMOS technology compatible with CMOS and passive components for integrated RF power amplifiers

The authors describe a bulk silicon LDMOS technology, which is compatible with CMOS and passive components, for the implementation of RF integrated power amplifiers (IPA's) used in portable wireless communication applications. This technology allows complete integration of the low cost and low power front-end circuits with the baseband circuits for single-chip wireless communication systems. The LDMOS transistor (0.35 μm channel length, 3.85 μm drift length, 3 GHz f
_T
and 20 V breakdown voltage), CMOS transistors (1.5 μm channel length), and high Q-factor (up to 6.10 at 900 MHz and 7.14 at 1.8 GHz) on-chip inductor are designed and fabricated to show the feasibility of the IPA implementation.