32.1 dB Gain D-Band Line-Based Power Amplifier for 5G-Advanced Applications in 22nm FDSOI Technology

This paper presents a design of a D-band transmission line-based power amplifier (LB-PA) which employed a pseudo-differential topology technique and utilizes the Coupled Slow-Wave Waveguides (CS-CPW) type of transmission line for impedance matching in 22nm Fully Depleted Silicon-on-Insulator (FDSOI) technology. In order to improve amplifiers' power gain for a close to <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathrm{f}_{\max}$</tex> operation, a differential amplifier circuit featuring two transistors connected in a common-source configuration, with capacitors that cancel out internal feedback <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathrm{C}_{\mathrm{N}}$</tex> is used which also enhances stability of the differential mode by counteracting the influence of parasitic gate-to-drain capacitance <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathrm{C}_{\text{gd}}$</tex>. The LB-PA achieves a power amplification gain <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathrm{G}_{\mathrm{p}}$</tex> of 32.1 dB with a PAE of 10.3% for a power consumption of 48 mW correspondingly at a 0.8V DC voltage supply. The acquired <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathrm{P}_{\text{sat}}$</tex> reaches 6.8 dBm while achieving a 3-dB-bandwidth of 20 GHz.