Design of class E/F power amplifier with distributed active transformer architecture

Design of a fully integrated power amplifier (PA) with distributed active transformer (DAT) architecture is introduced in this paper. PA achieves high efficiency and high power performance necessary for long range Internet of Thing (IoT) wireless communication systems. The amplifier is implemented in a 0.18 μm SiGe BiCMOS technology with 3.3 V supply voltage and achieves a peak output power of +32dBm and a gain of +15dBm while operating at 10GHz. The amplifier has a peak drain efficiency of 35% and peak power added efficiency (PAE) of 47%. The chip has an area of 1.3mm² including pads.