A fully integrated 2.6 GHz cascode class-E PA in 0.25 µm CMOS employing new bias network for stacked transistors

This work presents the design of a differential power amplifier in 0.25µm CMOS with stacked transistors operating in class-E mode. A new analytical approach is derived to design a reactive bias network so that both lower and upper switching transistors retain class-E-like voltage waveforms. By using the bias network simulations show an efficiency enhancement of more than 8 %. In measurements the amplifier achieves an output power of 21.7dBm at an drain efficiency and power added efficiency of 41.5% and 37.9% respectively at a center frequency of 2.6 GHz.