Reliability evaluation and comparison of Class-E and Class-A power amplifiers with 0.18 /spl mu/m CMOS technology

Circuit reliability of Class-E and Class-A power amplifiers are investigated based on a degradation sub-circuit model. In this study, we've found that Class-E amplifier degrades faster than Class-A amplifier, due to the relatively large switch stress voltage between gate to drain. The decrease of power added efficiency lead to the functional failure of a power amplifier.