A 900-MHz 29.5-dBm 0.13-μm CMOS HiVP Power Amplifier

Using ST 0.13-mum CMOS technology, a class A power amplifier has been developed for the global system for mobile communication in Europe. To solve the problem of low breakdown voltage in deep-submicrometer CMOS technology, the high-voltage/high-power (HiVP) device configuration is used. With the HiVP configuration, a large voltage can be divided by several devices so that the voltage drop on each device can be limited under the breakdown voltage. The measurement results show that the output power of 29.5 dBm has been achieved at the frequency of 900 MHz. The linear power gain reaches 11.5 dB and the maximum power-added efficiency is as high as 34.5%.