A fully integrated 2×2 power amplifier for dual band MIMO 802.11n WLAN application using SiGe HBT technology

A fully monolithic 2×2(2 a-band, 2 g-band) power amplifier based upon SiGe HBT process is developed for the dual band MIMO 802.11n WLAN system. In order to achieve desirable performances for the 5GHz band and high integration level, a special Through-Wafer-Via(TWV) process on Si wafer was developed and utilized. In this work, both a-band and g-band PAs show above 17dBm linear power output for −28dB EVM and more than 18dBm for −25dB EVM with 14% efficiency for a-band and 19% efficiency for g-band. This fully integrated PA has a total die area of 1.36mm × 3.68mm and is packaged in a custom designed QFN4×6 32pin package.