Design-Aware Parasitic-Aware Simulation Based Automation and Optimization of Highly Linear RF CMOS Power Amplifiers

Abstract

In this paper, a parasitic-design-aware simulation-based design tool is proposed for highly linear RF power amplifiers. The main aim of the proposed tool is to speed up the design process of RF power amplifiers. In addition, it provides accurate final designs taking into consideration the effect of parasitic components of both active and passive devices. The proposed tool relies on the knowledge of designing highly linear RF power amplifiers. Both the optimization steps and design methodology are presented in this paper. The proposed tool is verified by designing a highly linear RF power amplifier at three different frequencies (7 GHz, 10 GHz, and 13 GHz) using 65 nm technology node. The results show that an OP1 dB higher than 18 dBm, gain/S21 higher than 7 dB, and OIP3 higher than 24 dBm at 6 dB back-off power can be obtained.