32.4 A 67.8-to-108.2GHz Power Amplifier with a Three-Coupled-Line-Based Complementary-Gain-Boosting Technique Achieving 442GHz GBW and 23.1% peak PAE

The ever-growing demand for high-speed data links and innovative applications has driven the rapid development of millimeter-wave (mm-wave) technologies. In recent years, the 70/80/90GHz bands have been proposed and applied for high-speed wireless backhaul communications and airborne/shipborne broadband services [1]. A broadband transceiver is expected to cover multiple non-contiguous bands to maximize the spectrum capacity and support various services. However, it is challenging to design a broadband power amplifier (PA) operating near half of the f <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">T</inf> of a CMOS technology due to the limited inherent power gain, low passive efficiency, and low breakdown voltage of the transistors. A solution to these challenges is proposed in this work; namely, a 67.8-to-108.2GHz PA with a 20.8dB peak power gain and 23.1% peak power-added efficiency (PAE) in a 65nm bulk CMOS technology with an f <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">T</inf> of 210GHz.