Linköping University Post Print A 3.3 V 72.2 Mbit/s 802.11n WLAN transformer-based power amplifier in 65 nm CMOS A 3.3V 72.2Mbit/s 802.11n WLAN Transformer- Based Power Amplifier in 65nm CMOS

Abstract-This paper describes the design of a power amplifier (PA) for 802.11n WLAN fabricated in 65nm CMOS technology. The PA utilizes 3.3V thick gate oxide (5.2nm) transistors and a twostage differential configuration with integrated transformers for input and interstage matching. A methodology used to extract the layout parasitics from electromagnetic (EM) simulations is described. For a 72.2Mbit/s, 64-QAM, 802.11n OFDM signal at an average and peak output power of 11.6dBm and 19.6dBm, respectively, the measured EVM is 3.8%. The PA meets the spectral mask up to an average output power of 17dBm