Reliable mm-Wave and Sub-THz PA Design

This talk discusses the PA design paradigm changes from mm-wave to sub-mm-wave frequencies. We will look at the device technology (Si and III-V) capabilities and the amplifier architectures, derive compact transistor modeling and its translation to system figures of merit. The device level reliability mechanisms, its circuit-level impacts and the architecture-level mitigation techniques, including case for PMOS based PAs will be discussed. We will survey the sub-mm-wave PA designs which tend to be simpler architectures with power combining and more stages, with class-A bias and lesser harmonic control. These exacerbate the reliability, stability and thermal concerns.