Title:  Mixed-signal CMOS RF Power Amplifiers with Efficiency and Linearity Enhancement Techniques

Committee: 

Dr. Wang, Advisor       

Dr. Ghovanloo, Chair

Dr. Cressler

Abstract: The objective of the proposed research is to develop silicon-based high-performance radio frequency (RF) power amplifiers (PAs) for modern wireless systems. Modern PAs need to meet the increasingly stringent requirements, including energy-efficient and linear operations up to deep power back-off, to ensure the mobile device battery life and quality of service. We propose several mixed-signal PA architectures and circuit techniques to address these challenges. Leveraging the in-situ digital computation capabilities in deep submicron silicon technologies, the proposed PA architectures and circuit techniques can potentially achieve substantially enhanced large-signal RF PA performance, including energy efficiency, linearity, bandwidth, and robustness. Compared with conventional RF PAs, these digital intensive architectures are particularly conducive to full system-on-chip (SoC) integration for next-generation mobile devices.