A 1 W CMOS power amplifier for GSM-1800 with 55% PAE

Until recently it was the common opinion that CMOS RF power amplifiers were not feasible for mobile handsets. This paper presents a CMOS power amplifier for the GSM-1800 standard, with only two external matching components and a few decoupling capacitors. The performance of the power amplifier is better than any other CMOS power amplifier reported and comparable to commercially available power amplifiers in other technologies.