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A 3.5 GHz Class-F Power Amplifier Designs Using Current-Reused Technology for 5G Application

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Abstract

This paper presents a fully integrated class-F power amplifier (PA) with two stages, which is fabricated using Global Foundry (GF) 0.13 \(\upmu\)m CMOS process and is packaged in a 6-pins. The proposed circuit includes a power stage and a driver stage, and is designed to operate in class-F conditions. To avoid excessive power consumption, a current-reused topology is used in the driver stage. In addition, in order to reduce the complexity of the circuit design, the circuit is fabricated using lumped components. The experimental results show that the implemented PA delivers a power added efficiency (PAE) of 43.9% at an output power of 13.5 dBm at a 3.5 GHz operating frequency point. For verification, when driven by a 5 MHz LTE signal, the proposed PA obtains an adjacent channel leakage ratio (ACLRs) of − 20 dBc/− 20.5 dBc. After digital pre-distortion (DPD) ACLRs can achieve \(-\) 41.5 dBc/\(-\) 42.5 dBc at ± 5 MHz. Furthermore, the chip area including testing pads is \(1.31\times 1.12\) mm\(^{2}\).

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province 2020JJ4221, Special Funds for the Construction of Innovative Provinces in Hunan Province 2020JK4046 and 2022SK2007 and Changsha Science and Technology Project KH2202001.

Funding

The authors declare that they received support from the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province (2020JJ4221), the special funds for the Construction (2020JK4046,2022SK2007) and the Changsha Science and Technology Project (KH2202001) during the preparation of this manuscript. The recipient is Sichun Du.

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SD has involved for optimization of proposed work and simulation results analysis. YS has involved for writing manuscript, experimental works, and result evaluation. HY has involved for measured result analysis.

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Correspondence to Sichun Du.

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Du, S., Sun, Y. & Yin, H. A 3.5 GHz Class-F Power Amplifier Designs Using Current-Reused Technology for 5G Application. Wireless Pers Commun 128, 2667–2684 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-022-10064-x

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