An Ultra-Compact 0.17 mm2 2.4 GHz Low-Voltage Class-E Power Amplifier in 28 nm CMOS

This paper presents the design of a single ended class-E power amplifier in a low voltage 28 nm CMOS process using a stacked transistors technique. It is designed to amplify transmitted signals in a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) transceiver for Internet of Things (IoT) applications at 2.4 GHz. The power amplifier is fully integrated. In the on-wafer measurements, the amplifier achieves an output power in the range between 7.0 dBm and 10.5 dBm while continuously providing a drain efficiency of 40 %. To the authors' best knowledge, the active chip area of 0.17 mm(2) presents the smallest size ever published for power amplifiers in this specific scope of application.