Title :
A SiGe LTE power amplifier with capacitive tuning for size-reduction of biasing inductor
Author :
Jinshu Zhao ; Wolf, Robert ; Ellinger, F.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Circuit Design & Network Theor., Tech. Univ. Dresden, Dresden, Germany
Abstract :
This paper demonstrates a fully integrated power amplifier for long term evolution (LTE) applications. The power amplifier is adopting a tuning capacitor in parallel with the choke inductor, which reduces the DC power consumption of the inductor and decreases the chip size. The total power added efficiency (PAE) is enhanced as a result. The proposed power amplifier is manufactured using a 0.25 μm SiGe hetero-junction bipolar transistor (HBT) process. For a LTE signal with a centre frequency of 2.1 GHz, the PA delivers an output power of 21.3 dBm with the power added efficiency (PAE) of 21% and power gain of 19.5 dB at the 1 dB compression point. For the LTE downlink quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM64) signal at 2.11 GHz with 20 MHz channel bandwidth, the measured ACLR is below -30 dBc for the output power of 18 dBm with PAE above 15%. The error vector magnitude (EVM) specifications are met for LTE 20 MHz bandwidth QPSK modulation scheme, and complied with 1 dB power back-off for QAM16 signal and at 2 dB power back-off for QAM64 modulation scheme. The measurement results verify that the proposed method is promising for the application of the fully integrated PA.
Keywords :
Ge-Si alloys; Long Term Evolution; UHF power amplifiers; heterojunction bipolar transistors; inductors; quadrature amplitude modulation; quadrature phase shift keying; DC power consumption reduction; EVM specifications; HBT process; LTE downlink quadrature amplitude modulation signal; PA; QAM16 signal; QAM64 signal; QPSK modulation scheme; SiGe; bandwidth 20 MHz; biasing inductor; capacitive tuning; choke inductor; efficiency 21 percent; error vector magnitude specifications; frequency 2.1 GHz; frequency 2.11 GHz; fully integrated power amplifier; gain 19.5 dB; heterojunction bipolar transistor process; long term evolution applications; power added efficiency; size 0.25 mum; size-reduction; Capacitors; Frequency measurement; Inductors; Long Term Evolution; Power amplifiers; Power measurement; Tuning; Power amplifier (PA); adjacent channel leakage power ratio (ACLR); choke inductor; error vector magnitude (EVM); hetero-junction bipolar transistors (HBT); long term evolution (LTE); power added efficiency (PAE);
Conference_Titel :
Ph.D. Research in Microelectronics and Electronics (PRIME), 2013 9th Conference on
Conference_Location :
Villach
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4673-4580-4
DOI :
10.1109/PRIME.2013.6603168
