A 27 GHz Adaptive Bias Variable Gain Power Amplifier and T/R Switch in 22nm FD-SOI CMOS for 5G Antenna Arrays

A 27 GHz fully integrated, variable gain, two stage Power Amplifier (PA) and a Transmit/Receive (T/R) switch targeting 5G antenna array systems are presented. The PA uses adaptive bias, tracking the input signal amplitude, which improves saturated output power (P
_sat
) with 1.4 dB and 1 dB output compression (OP
_1dB
) by 3 dB. For a supply voltage of 1.2 V, the PA reaches a P
_sat
of 17.4 dBm and an OP
_1dB
of 16.5 dBm, with a power added efficiency of 19.5 % and 17.3 %, respectively. The power gain can be controlled with 5-bits from 5.2 to 34 dB. The T/R-switch has an insertion loss of 1.63/1.46 dB in TX/RX mode, and for reliability reasons all switch devices are on in TX-mode. The complete PA and T/R-switch only occupies 0.146 mm
²
in a 22 nm FD-SOI CMOS technology.