An X-band CMOS push-pull power amplifier with capacitive neutralization for high linearity and high efficiency applications

An X-band CMOS power amplifier (PA) for high linearity and high efficiency application is presented in this paper. Neutralization technique is introduced to improve the stability and reverse-isolation performance of the PA. A push-pull topology is proposed for high linear performance. The proposed PA occupies only 0.2mm² chip area under 180nm CMOS technology. Post simulation results show that the PA achieves 18.3dB gain at 12GHz with a 2GHz 3-dB bandwidth. The 1dB compressed output power (P1dB) is 18.9dBm with 21.4% power-added efficiency (PAE). The PA achieves a saturated output power (P_sat) of 20.8dBm as well as a maximum PAE (PAEmax) of 35.0%.