A 60 GHz Power Amplifier With 14.5 dBm Saturation Power and 25% Peak PAE in CMOS 65 nm SOI

A 60 GHz wideband power amplifier (PA) is fabricated in a standard CMOS SOI 65 nm process. The PA is based on two cascode stages. Input, output and inter-stage matching use coplanar wave guide (CPW) transmission lines that have low losses thanks to the high-resistivity SOI substrate (3 kΩ · cm). The PA measurements are carried out for supply voltages V DD going from 1.2 V to 2.6 V and achieve a saturation power of 10 dBm to 16.5 dBm respectively. The peak power-added efficiency (PAE) is higher than 20% for all applied V DD values.