One-Chip Integration of RF MEMS Switched Capacitor and Power Amplifier Using CMOS-Compatible Post Fabrication Process
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
One‑Chip Integration of RF MEMS Switched Capacitor and Power Amplifier Using CMOS‑Compatible Post Fabrication Process Hyunok Cho1 · Milim Lee2 · Changkun Park2 · Jae Yeong Park1 Received: 31 July 2020 / Revised: 21 September 2020 / Accepted: 15 October 2020 © The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers 2020
Abstract This study presents a single-chip integrated reconfigurable 180-nm complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) power amplifier (PA) with a radio frequency micro-electro-mechanical system (RF MEMS) switched capacitor, which is highly useful for advanced wireless mobile communication systems. The proposed reconfigurable PA prototype was designed to support the 0.9, 1.8, 2.4, and 5.0 GHz quad-bands by varying the capacitance values of the RF MEMS switched capacitor at the output matching network. The RF MEMS switched capacitor was post-fabricated on the same silicon substrate with which the PA circuit was integrated using 180-nm CMOS fabrication technology. The entire fabrication step was performed based on a CMOS-compatible low-temperature post process to avoid the performance degradation of the CMOS PA circuit. The fabricated RF MEMS switched capacitor exhibited capacitances of approximately 1.0 and 3.9 pF at a frequency of 0.9 GHz in its OFF and ON states, respectively. The measured output powers of the integrated quad-band PA were 27.13, 26.63, 26.29, and 23.43 dBm at the frequencies of 0.9, 1.8, 2.4, and 5.0 GHz with the continuous-wave signal, respectively. Keywords Reconfigurable · Power amplifiers (PAs) · Radio frequency micro-electro-mechanical system (RF MEMS) switched capacitor · CMOS-compatible low-temperature post process
1 Introduction In recent decades, the size and complexity of radio frequency (RF) front-end modules (FEMs) have grown with the rapid development of the smart phone and addition of frequency bands from the changes in the mobile communication technology generations. Additionally, as the number of sensors and cameras have increased in smart phones, it has become extremely important to reduce the size of the FEM while maintaining the performance. Because of the development of the multiband communication standards that have been followed for the past decade, switching and tuning technologies for band selection are necessary. If the tunable components, such as varactors, switched capacitors, and RF micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) tunable devices, are used to select the frequency band, it can * Jae Yeong Park [email protected] 1
Department of Electronic Engineering, Kwangwoon Univerity, Seoul, Korea
School of Electronic Engineering, Soongsil Univerity, Seoul, Korea
2
significantly affect the size reduction of the reconfigurable FEMs with multi-band operation. Research to incorporate the RF MEMS tunable devices toward advanced wireless communication systems has been continuously conducted due to their advantages over semiconductor devices, such as low loss, high quality factor, high isolation, less power consumption, and size reduction [1, 2]
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