A k-band gain enhanced power amplifier in 0.18μm CMOS process by slow wave structure

A 18 to 24-GHz broadband power amplifier (PA) by 0.18 um CMOS technology is presented in this paper. The low loss microstrip line matching technique is used to reduce transmission losses and achieve higher gain, PAE and enough output power. An improved Gain-boosting technique is also included in the PA architecture to improve high frequency gain and gain flatness. The measurement results show that small-signal gain is large than 18.5dB from 18 to 24-GHz, while the gain variation is less than 1.5dB. The maximum PAE is about 18%, the output P_1dB is 13.1 dBm and 15dBm P_sat.