Power Amplifier for front-end WiFi-6E application

This paper proposes a dual-band Power Amplifier (PA) suited to WLAN 802.11ax applications in wireless communication. Operating in frequency range of 5GHz to 7GHz, the PA employs a single-transistor design biased in a class-AB configuration. Implemented using UMC 65nm CMOS PDK, the compact layout inclusive of pad frames occupies an area of 880 mu m x418 mu m (0.37mm(2)). For continuous wave (CW) source, post-layout simulation offers a gain of 11.2dB, output saturated power of 20.8dB and a Power Added Efficiency (PAE) of 20.8%. For 802.11ax MCS-11 signals, linear power output (P-avg) exceeds 12dBm at Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) <=-35dB across the 5GHz and 6GHz bands. Unlike most literature that predominantly focuses on WLAN PA studies up to 6GHz, this paper extends the investigation up to 7.050GHz suitable for WiFi-6E application.