Fully-integrated novel high efficiency linear CMOS power amplifier for 5.8 GHz ETC applications

A fully integrated novel power amplifier (PA) using 130 nm CMOS process is presented for electric toll collection (ETC) applications. To obtain good efficiency and high linear gain performance, a novel cascode PA based on a class E PA has been designed, fabricated and fully measured. The proposed PA is a single-ended single-stage amplifier at an operating voltage of only 2 V. The power added efficiency (PAE) of the PA is as high as 42.6% with a gain of 11.4 dB at P1 dB of 13.4 dBm. This CMOS PA includes all matching circuits and biasing circuits, and no external components are required.