A Wi-Fi 6E Tri-Band Power Amplifier for WLAN Applications Featuring a Novel Re-configurable Matching Network

This article introduces a novel design methodology of a re-configurable tri-band matching network along with Power Amplifier (PA) that supports the latest WLAN applications. The implemented matching network/circuit, specifically designed for the 2.4 GHz band, enables amplifier to achieve a linear power exceeding 11 dBm. Incorporating the proposed matching circuit, standalone PA is designed to support tri-band operation (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz) for the emerging wireless local area network (WLAN) applications. These designs are realized using UMC 65 nm CMOS technology in commercial Cadence Virtuoso design environment with a core area occupying 0.33  \(\textrm{mm}^{2}\) ${\text{mm}}^2$ . In the 2.4/5/6-GHz WLAN bands, the power amplifier achieves a output power 1-dB compression ( \(P_{1\textrm{dB}}\) $P_{1\text{dB}}$ ) point ranging from 20.3 to 22.4 dBm, with power-added efficiency (PAE) values ranging from 10 to 16%. The power amplifier delivers an average power output ( \(P_{avg}\) $P_{\mathit{avg}}$ ) of 11.6–14.5 dBm with an Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) of − 35 dB for 80-MHz bandwidth WLAN 802.11ax source, with source EVM maintained at − 50 dB. The standalone PA and novel matching circuit for 2.4 GHz presents one of the first published designs in the literature for tri-band WLAN applications.