Optimized Ultralow-Power Amplifier for OOK Transmitter With Shaped Voltage Drive

For a highly efficient ON-OFF keying (OOK) transmitter, a microwatt-level ultralow-power (ULP) driver and power amplifier (PA) are designed. For efficient amplification with very high optimum impedance in the ULP application, a class-C topology is implemented and loadpull simulations are carried out...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on microwave theory and techniques 2016-08, Vol.64 (8), p.2615-2622
Main Authors: Jeong, Daechul, Lee, Hankyu, Chung, Taeyoung, Lee, Seokwon, Lee, Jaesup, Kim, Bumman
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amplification
Class-C
CMOS
Efficiency
Electric potential
Harmonic analysis
Impedance
Impedance matching
Inductors
ON–OFF keying (OOK)
Optimization
power amplifier (PA)
Power demand
Q-factor
Transmitters
Tuning
ultralow power (ULP)
Voltage
Waveforms
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:For a highly efficient ON-OFF keying (OOK) transmitter, a microwatt-level ultralow-power (ULP) driver and power amplifier (PA) are designed. For efficient amplification with very high optimum impedance in the ULP application, a class-C topology is implemented and loadpull simulations are carried out to show that the proposed PA can achieve good efficiency at high optimum load impedance without any harmonic tuning. In addition, a voltage-shaping driver is optimized together with the PA for an efficient drive. The proposed driver shapes the PA input voltage into a waveform having a small conduction angle. The shaped input voltage drives the PA to a saturated operation for good efficiency even if the supply voltage is low in the drive stage. The developed driver and PA are implemented in a CMOS 65-nm process and support a 1-Mb/s OOK modulated signal. The implemented PA achieves a drain efficiency of 50.8% at the -6.8-dBm output power and 49.8% at the -10-dBm output power when transmitting continuous 1 signal.
ISSN:0018-9480
1557-9670
DOI:10.1109/TMTT.2016.2581822