A +18 dBm broadband CMOS power amplifier RFIC with distortion cancellation

A broadband fully-integrated class-A power amplifier (PA) is presented using derivative superposition (DS), which delivers +18 dBm of saturated output power from 1 GHz to 6 GHz. The PA exhibits a flat power gain of 13.5 +/- 1.2 dB over its operating frequency range. It features a high linearity with an output 1dB compression point (OP_1dB) and third order intercept point (OIP3) of more than +16 dBm and +25 dBm respectively. The measured OIP3 remains above +25 dBm, i.e. 9 dB higher than OP_1dB, for a wide range of power levels up to 4 dB backoff from OP_1dB. The chip was fabricated using a 0.13 μm CMOS process, occupying an active area of only 200 μm x 110 μm.