Abstract

With more than 100M cellular and cordless phones already this year, the digital mobilecom market is booming rapidly attracting a lot of interest from CMOS and BiCMOS IC suppliers wanting to grab a big share of it. Yet, the high power amplifier (> 1 W) in the transmit chain, because it cannot easily be integrated in mainstream Si processes, remains a battlefield for GaAs and Si technologies with no clear winner so far. Power added efficiency at high and low power levels and low supply voltage, device count, cost, reliability as well as ease of power control are the key parameters which are governing the power amplifier rat race.