Power amplifiers in CMOS technology : a contributio to power amplifier theory and techniques

Acar, Mustafa

doi:10.3990/1.9789036531382

Cited by 5 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Although gate-oxide breakdown can manifest in several ways, this work mainly focuses on hard breakdown, wherein a highly conductive path is formed in the gateoxide [23,24]. This conductive path significantly reduces the off-resistance of a MOS transistor, heavily compromising its performance [1].…”

Section: A Gate-oxide Breakdownmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These effects manifest as an increase in on-resistance and switch turn-on voltage, degrading the performance of SMPAs. For significant hot carrier degradation to occur, both a high drainsource voltage and substantial drain current must be present, which only occur under severe load-mismatch conditions in SMPAs that are designed for ZVS [1].…”

Section: B Hot Carrier Degradationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The second tank at the output, L 0 − C 0 , is a band-pass filter designed to pass energy to the load only at the fundamental frequency, f 0 . The relative duty cycle parameter, d [1], describes the duty cycle of the switch drive voltage as…”

Section: A Class-e Pa Basicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Consequently, Switch-Mode PAs (SMPAs) compare favorably to linear PAs due to their exceptionally high efficiency. The class-E PA topology is one such SMPA, employing a resonant waveform-shaping network to achieve the Zero-Voltage Switching (ZVS) and Zero-Slope Switching (ZSS) conditions necessary to achieve high (ideally 100%) efficiency [1][2][3][4][5]. A schematic representation of a class-E PA and its switch voltage and current waveforms under ZVS and ZSS conditions are shown in Figure 1a and b, respectively [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Firstly, an increase in PA dissipation due to non-ZVS conditions can cause PA degeneration through thermal (over-)stress. Additionally, the associated increase in average switch current may damage the switch through electromigration [14,15] or hot carrier degradation [1,16]. Lastly, and most importantly, extreme switch voltage excursions exceeding the switch transistor breakdown voltage limit can cause instantaneous and permanent failure as a consequence of gate-oxide breakdown [17,18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Theory and Implementation of a Load-Mismatch Protective Class-E PA System

Ponte

Ghahremani²,

Huiskamp

et al. 2020

IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. I

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Highly efficient switch-mode class-E Power Amplifiers (PAs) are sensitive to load impedance variations. For Voltage Standing Wave Ratios (VSWRs) up to 10:1, the peak switch voltage and average switch current can increase by a factor 1.7 and 2.5, respectively, relative to those under nominal load conditions, imposing serious reliability risks. This work describes a technique to self-protect class-E PAs to decrease their sensitivity to load variations, relying on tuning of the switch-tank relative-resonance frequency, implemented by an on-chip Switched-Capacitor Bank (SCB). To validate the technique, load-pull measurements are conducted on a class-E PA implemented in a standard 65 nm CMOS technology, employing an off-chip matching network, augmented with a fully automated self-protective control loop. Under nominal conditions, the PA provides 17.8 dBm at 1.4 GHz into 50 Ω from a 1.2 V supply with 67% efficiency. The proposed self-protective PA can reduce its peak switch voltage below the technology-and switch design-related limit for any load with a VSWR up to 19:1, while not considerably impacting output power and efficiency, which see a maximum degradation of 1.6 dB and 6%, respectively. Furthermore, a class-E PA designed to safely handle 2.5× the nominal average switch current can reliably operate for VSWRs up to 19:1 when protected with our technique.

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Section: A Gate-oxide Breakdownmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: B Hot Carrier Degradationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Class-e Pa Basicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Theory and Implementation of a Load-Mismatch Protective Class-E PA System

Ponte

Ghahremani²,

Huiskamp

et al. 2020

IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. I

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Augmentation of Class-E PA Reliability under Load Mismatch Conditions

Ponte

Ghahremani

Huiskamp

et al. 2018

2018 25th IEEE International Conference on Electronics, Circuits and Systems (ICECS)

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Highly efficient switch-mode Class-E power amplifiers (PAs) are sensitive to load impedance variations. For voltage standing wave ratios (VSWRs) up to 10:1, the peak switch voltage and average switch current can increase by a factor 1.7 and 2.5, respectively, with respect to the nominal load condition, thereby imposing serious reliability risks. This work introduces a technique to self-protect/self-heal Class-E PAs against the effects of load variations, with only a minor impact on output power and efficiency. To validate the proposed technique, load-pull measurements are conducted on a Class-E PA implemented in a standard 65nm CMOS technology, employing an off-chip matching network, augmented with a fully automated self-protective/self-healing control loop. Under nominal operating conditions, the PA provides 17.5dBm output power into 50Ω from a 1.2V supply with 67% efficiency when all the losses of the matching network are included. It is shown that the proposed self-protective PA can reduce its peak switch voltage to below the value allowed by the technology for all load mismatch conditions with VSWR up to 19:1 while output power and efficiency are not considerably affected. Furthermore, a PA with an average current safety factor of 2.5 can reliably handle VSWRs up to 19:1.

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