Design of Reconfigurable Dual Band Power Amplifier for Sub-6 GHz Applications

The design of a dual-band reconfigurable Power Amplifier (PA) is proposed for Near Field Communications (NFC) for Short Distance Communications applications. The NFC operates at 13.56 MHz and the short distance applications are operated at 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi standard. The NFC circuit is designed by using a Class-E switching amplifier over a frequency range of 13.553 MHz-13.567 MHz range with 13.56 MHz as a center frequency. The Wi-Fi standard circuit is designed by using the Doherty Power Amplifier (DPA). Initially, the performance metrics of NFC amplifier and DPA circuits are analyzed using Cadence Electronic Design Automation (EDA) virtuoso design suite and 45 nm Process Design Kit (PDK) libraries. The dual-band reconfigurable PA circuitry is designed over the entire frequency spectrum of 10 MHz to 3.3 GHz of Sub-6 GHz frequency spectrum to support the lower frequency band of NFC and higher frequency band of Wi-Fi standard. The NFC circuit operates at 13.56 MHz with a 10 dBm input and Power Added Efficiency of 35. The DPA circuit operates at 2.4 GHz frequency with 10dBm input and a PAE of 55.