A 10-15 GHz BiCMOS Power Amplifier for 6G NR FR3 Band with 27.3 dBm PSAT and 33% PAE

This work presents a watt-level two-stage differential power amplifier (PA) implemented in a 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS technology. The PA is designed to operate in the 10-15 GHz portion of the FR3 band for the 6 G New Radio (NR) and employs a differential cascode topology to achieve a high saturated power (PSAT) using a 5 V supply. The measured small-signal gain is 31.1 dB, with a 3 dB bandwidth ranging from 9.5 to 21.5 GHz, resulting in a broad coverage of the FR3 spectrum. The PA delivers a PSAT of 27.3 dBm at a peak power-added efficiency (PAE) of 33.4%. When tested with 100 MHz 5 G NR-FR1 input signals, the PA achieves an EVM-limit-compliant average output power (PAvg) of 20.0 dBm using 64 QAM-modulated sub-carriers, and 17.5 dBm with 256 QAM-modulated sub-carriers, without the use of DPD. The PA also supports carrier aggregation, enabling high data rate communications.