High-Efficiency Power Amplifier Design for Bluetooth Low Energy Applications

This paper presents a differential common source fixed gain high efficiency power amplifier with performance determined by using chip-on-board PCB measurements. The amplifier is based on inductive load without degeneration which is designed using 40nm CMOS process. The proposed amplifier design achieves power gain of 10 dB, operating frequency in the 2.4 GHz ISM band, power consumption of 24.2 mW using 1.1 V supply voltage, a power added efficiency of over 60%, an output third order intermodulation intercept point of +15 dBm and the output referred 1-dB gain compression point of +10.4 dBm. The designed amplifier occupies a core area of 650 μm x 450 μm.