A fully differential monolithic 2.4GHZ PA for IEEE 802.15.4 based on efficiency design flow

This work presents the design and implementation of a differential class C power amplifier (PA) in a 90 nm CMOS technology, specified to be used in a IEEE802.15.4 low power transceiver. The design is based on a PA efficiency design flow implemented in MATLAB which enables to reach very good power efficiency figures. The method is validated comparing MATLAB predicted data and post-layout SpectreRF simulated results. Post-layout simulations show a Power Amplifier Efficiency (PAE) of 46.5%, a power gain G
_pow
of 26dB, and an output power P
_out
of 1.9dBm for a 100 load, working with a supply voltage V
_DD
= 0.65 V and a MOS DC current I
_D
of 4.6 mA. The total area is 700 μm × 710 μm.