A Reconfigurable K-/Ka-Band Power Amplifier With High PAE in 0.18- $\mu$m SiGe BiCMOS for Multi-Band Applications

This paper presents a high power efficient broad-band programmable gain amplifier with multi-band switching. The proposed two stage common-emitter amplifier, by using the current reuse topology with a magnetically coupled transformer and a MOS varactor bank as a frequency tunable load, achieves a 55.9% peak power added efficiency (PAE), a peak saturated power of +11.1 dBm, a variable gain from 1.8 to 16 dB, and a tunable large signal 3-dB bandwidth from 24.3 to 35 GHz. The design is fabricated in a commercial 0.18- μm SiGe BiCMOS technology and measured with an output 1-dB gain compression point which is better than +9.6 dBm and a maximum dc power consumption of 22.5 mW from a single 1.8 V supply. The core amplifier, excluding the measurement pads, occupies a die area of 500 μm×450 μm.