This paper presents high efficiency Class-E and compact Doherty power amplifiers (PAs) with novel harmonics termination for handset applications using a GaAs/InGaP heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) process. The novel harmonics termination circuit effectively reduces the insertion loss of the matching circuit, allowing a device with a compact size. The Doherty PA uses a lumped-element transformer which consists of metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitors on an IC substrate, a bonding-wire inductor and short micro-strip lines on a printed circuit board (PCB). The fabricated Class-E PA exhibits a power added efficiency (PAE) as high as 69.0% at 1.95GHz and as high as 67.6% at 2.535GHz. The fabricated Doherty PA exhibits an average output power of 25.5dBm and a PAE as high as 50.1% under a 10-MHz band width quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) 6.16-dB peak-to-average-power-ratio (PAPR) LTE signal at 1.95GHz. The fabricated chip size is smaller than 1mm2. The input and output Doherty transformer areas are 0.5mm by 1.0mm and 0.7mm by 0.7mm, respectively.

This paper presents a novel CMOS bias topology serving as not only a bias circuit but also an adaptive linearizer for SiGe HBT power amplifier (PA) IC. The novel bias circuit can well keep the base-to-emitter voltage (Vbe) of RF amplifying HBT constant and adaptively increase the base current (Ib) with the increase of the input power. Therefore, the gain compression and phase distortion performance of the PA is improved. A three-stage 5-GHz band PA IC with the novel bias circuit for WLAN applications is designed and fabricated in IBM 0.35µm SiGe BiCMOS technology. Under 54Mbps OFDM signal at 5.4GHz, the PA IC exhibits a measured small-signal gain of 29dB, an EVM of 0.9% at 17dBm output power and a DC current consumption of 284mA.