A novel stair‐finger grid type transistor for high‐performance millimeter‐wave power amplifier. Issue 10 (9th July 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Li, Linhong; Zhang, Zhaofeng
• Is Part Of: Microwave and optical technology letters. Volume 64:Issue 10(2022)
• Page Start: 1675
• Page End: 1680
• Publication Date: 2022-07-09
• Subjects: CMOS transistor -- distributed active transformer -- millimeter‐wave -- power amplifier -- stair‐finger; Microwaves -- Periodicals; Optics -- Periodicals; 621
• DOI: 10.1002/mop.33338
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0895-2477

Abstract

Abstract: A novel stair‐finger grid type (SFGT) transistor layout is proposed in this letter to improve the f T ${f}_{{\rm{T}}}$ and f max ${f}_{\max }$ of large‐sized transistors for the millimeter‐wave power amplifier (PA). It combines the promoted stair‐finger transistor cells in a grid pattern to minimize parasitic capacitances and metal losses, which has been verified to provide higher gain over broadband by measurements. Two three‐stage dual‐differential PAs with different transistor layouts are compared in this letter. The PA employs a capacitive neutralization technique and distributed active transformer‐based combiner and divider. Fabricated in the Huali Microelectronics Corporation (HLMC) 40‐nm Complementary Metal Oxide (CMOS) (Co process, the PA with SFGT transistor [PA2] achieves higher gain and output power than the PA with the currently best‐known transistor [PA1]). PA2 achieves 15.22 dBm saturated output power ( P sat ${P}_{\mathrm{sat}}$ ), 14.25 dBm output power at 1 dB compression point ( P 1 dB ${P}_{1\unicode{x0200A}\mathrm{dB}}$ ), and 18.09 dB power gain when the basic supply is 1.1 V at 83 GHz.