Fully integrated dual-band power amplifiers with on-chip baluns in 65nm CMOS for an 802.11n MIMO WLAN SoC

Abstract

Fully integrated dual-band power amplifiers with on-chip baluns for 802.11 n MIMO WLAN applications are presented. With a 3.3 v supply, the PAs produce a saturated output power of 28.3 dBm and 26.7 dBm with peak drain efficiency of 35.3% and 25.3% for the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, respectively. By utilizing multiple fully self-contained linearization algorithms, an EVM of -25 dB is achieved at 22.4 dBm for the 2.4 GHz band and 20.5dBm for the 5 GHz band while transmitting 54 Mbs OFDM. The chip is fabricated in standard 65 nm CMOS and the PAs occupy 0.31 mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> (2.4 G) and 0.27 mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> (5G) area.