K-band CMOS power amplifier with adaptive bias for enhancement in back-off efficiency

Abstract

A K-band power amplifier that dynamically adjusts the dc consumption based on the output power is presented. Compared with a fixed-bias PA that consumes a constant dc power of 265 mW, the proposed PA saves 157 mW at quiescent state and 88 mW when operated at P <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1dB</sub> 6-dB back-off, and the OP <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">1dB</sub> of the PA is also extended. This is the first CMOS PA with effective enhancement in back-off efficiency near MMW region.