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Lecture 17: Power Amplifiers--Part I
Class on Friday November 11
th
CANCELLED
Quiz II on Friday November 18th
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Outline
PA Basics
Output power
Conjugate match versus load match
Physical implementation
Classification of Power Amplifiers
Linear classes (A,B,AB,C)
Nonlinear Classes (D,E,F)
Large Signal Impedance Matching
Efficiency
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Power Amplifiers in Modern RFIC
Design
For applications requiring higher than 20dBm (100mW) of output power
power amplifiers are mostly off-chip implemented in GaAs or III-V technologies
A major challenge to the full integration of the whole receiver in an SOC
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General Considerations
Why impedance conversion at the output?
How to deliver 1W to a 50- antenna?
v
L
amplitude = 10 V
i
L
amplitude = 0.2 A
v
o
amplitude = 2.5 V
i
o
amplitude = 0. 8A
R
in
= 3.125
High current consumption
Difficult to integrate into ICs
2.5V
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General Considerations
Parasitic inductance and resistance
For 1 GHz signal and i
o
amplitude = 0.8 A
0.1 nH 500 mV drop (10% of 5V p-p)
100 m 80 mV drop
Instability
Layout and package issues
Heat dissipation problem
Reliability
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Matching the PA to the Load
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Matching the PA to the Load
Simple Output stage
biased depending on
the required class of
operation
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General Considerations
Output power 20 ~ 30 dBm
Efficiency 30% ~ 60%
IMD -30 dBc
Output spur and harmonics -50 ~ -70 dBc
Output impedance 50
Gain 20 ~ 30 dB
Stability Factor > 1
Power control On-off or 1-dB steps
Supply voltage 1.2 ~ 5.8 V
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DD
V
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Class A PA
It operates linearly for the whole input and output range of
signals.
Excellent linearity
Transistor is always conducting Poor drain Efficiency
(< 50%)
Typically the maximum efficiency is less than 50% due to
the effect of finite V
DS,sat
Class A operates at the highest possible frequency
compared to other classes (1/3-1/4 f
T
)
Linearity is not maintained for hard-driven class A
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Class B Power Amplifiers
To increase the drain efficiencyset the biasing
such that the fraction of cycle over which the
drain current and drain voltage are
simultaneously nonzerodecrease dc power
dissipation
The device is turned off of the cycle
Less linearity than class A operation
Require higher Q matching network to achieve a
sin. output
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4
,
2

8
sin
1

8 2
sin
2
1
2
sin sin
2
1
0 sin
max , ,
2 /
0
2 2
1
1
2 /
0
1

= =
= =
=
= =
>
= =
>
= = >
> =

D
L
DD
peak D
DD
L dm
DC
o
D
DD
dm
DC
T
dm
o dm D
L
dm
L
d
o
o L
dm
d
st
T
dm
o o dm d
st
D o dm D
R
V
i if
V
R I
P
P
V
I
P
I
tdt I
T
i
Average current DC
R
I
R
v
P
t R
I
v harmonic
I
tdt t I
T
I harmonic
i for t I i
Max efficiency for class B
operation
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Class AB Power Amplifiers
Class AB have conduction angles between
( and 2 )
Widely used operation class
Linearity is acceptable in many
applications, while efficiency is between
that of class A and class B.
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Class C Power Amplifiers
Same Circuit as previous classes at different biasing
level.
Conduction angle less than half the cycle
Relies on high-Q output matching to regenerate the sin.
Signal @output
Drain current contains many harmonics that have to be
filtered out before transmission
Requires smaller load resistances than class A that
translates into bigger devicesharder to realizeeffect
of parasitics is more critical
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Summary of Power Amplifier Linear
Classes
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Summary of Linear Power Amplifierscontd
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Sharpen the edge of the drain voltage/collector to reduce
power consumption
Ex: Class A PA with 2nd harmonic termination
Harmonic Termination
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time
I
L
V
s
V
o
V
in
ON
OFF
I
c
I
s
VDD
Switching Amplifiers -
-Class E PA
RFC
I
L
I
C
V
o
V
in
V
s
Special matching network
Non-overlapping switch
voltage/current, ideally 100%
efficiency
Input provides timing
information, VDD controls Pout
Better average efficiency
P
out
P
loss

Vdd
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Class E--Hard Switching versus Soft
Switching
Design criteria
As switch turns off, V
s
remains low
long enough (C1 action).
V
s
reaches zero just before M
1
turn
on (second-order network).
dV
s
/dt near zero when M
1
turn on.
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Class E Design equations
L
DD
L
DD
out
DD peak D
L L
L
R
V
R
V
P
V V
Q Q
C C
R R
C
QR
L
2 2
2
max ,
,
1 2
2
1
2
577 . 0 .
4 / 1
2
* 56 . 3
08 . 2
42 . 1
1
447 . 5
184 . 0
) 2 / )( 1 4 / (
1

+
=
=

+
=
=

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Switching PA--Class F Stages
Harmonic Termination
Switching PA with harmonic termination
HD2 or HD3 or higher order termination
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Power Amplifier Classification
Shape of the
output
network
The input
amplitude
relative to the
bias voltage
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Power efficiency
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References
Behzad Razavi, RF Microelectronics
T. H. Lee, The Design of CMOS Radio-
Frequency Integrated Circuits,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
second edition.
Steve Cripps, RF Power Amplifiers for
Wireless Communications, Artech house
1999.