A compact, 36 to 72 GHz 15.8 dBm power amplifier with 66.7% fractional bandwidth in 45 nm SOI CMOS

A 36 to 72 GHz wideband power amplifier (PA) in 45‐nm silicon‐on‐insulator CMOS is presented. The PA adopts a two‐stage cascode topology, in which counterposed resonances in the matching networks enable a 3‐dB output power bandwidth of 36 GHz. This bandwidth represents a 66.7% fractional bandwidth—a 1.8X improvement over previously reported CMOS V‐band PAs. At 62 GHz, the PA achieves a peak output power of 15.8 dBm, a gain of 16.9 dB, and 9.4% power‐added efficiency using a 2.2‐V supply. The PA has the largest output power and smallest die area among reported wideband (BW > 30%) millimeter‐wave PAs in CMOS. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 56:166–169, 2014