A VSWR-rugged silicon bipolar RF power amplifier

Author

Scuderi, Antonino ; Scuderi, Angelo ; Carrara, Francesco ; Palmisano, Giuseppe

Author_Institution

STMicroelectronics, Catania, Italy

fYear

2005

fDate

9-11 Oct. 2005

Firstpage

116

Lastpage

119

Abstract

In this paper, the effect of emitter ballast on the ruggedness of RF power amplifiers is investigated. Silicon bipolar 1.8-GHz power amplifiers based on different ballasted transistors have been integrated and tested under load mismatch conditions. A ballasted device with 25-mV emitter voltage drop achieves the optimum trade-off between ruggedness and performance. The power amplifier based on this device is able to tolerate a 20:1 load standing-wave ratio up to a 5.8-V supply voltage. It delivers a 33.4-dBm saturated output power with 51% maximum power-added efficiency at a nominal 3.5-V supply voltage.

Keywords

UHF power amplifiers; bipolar integrated circuits; elemental semiconductors; radiofrequency integrated circuits; silicon; 1.8 GHz; 25 mV; 3.5 V; Si; VSWR-rugged silicon bipolar RF power amplifier; ballasted transistors; emitter ballast; emitter voltage drop; load mismatch conditions; voltage standing-wave ratio; Costs; Electronic ballasts; Power amplifiers; Power transistors; Protection; Radio frequency; Radiofrequency amplifiers; Silicon; Testing; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Bipolar/BiCMOS Circuits and Technology Meeting, 2005. Proceedings of the

Print_ISBN

0-7803-9309-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/BIPOL.2005.1555213

Filename

1555213