Use of a thick oxide device as a cascode for a thin oxide transconductance device in mosfet technology and its application to a power amplifier design
AssigneeBroadcom Corporation
InventorArya Behzad
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A power amplifier power amplifier includes a transconductance stage and a cascode stage. The transconductance stage that is operable to receive an input voltage signal and to produce an output current signal. The transconductance stage includes a first Metal Oxide Silicon (MOS) transistor having a first gate oxide thickness and a first channel length. The cascode stage communicatively couples to the transconductance stage and is operable to receive the output current signal and to produce an output voltage signal based thereupon. The cascode stage includes a second MOS transistor having a second gate oxide thickness and a second channel length.
Claims11
1-25. (canceled)
A power amplifier comprising:
- a primary cascode amplifier that receives an input voltage signal and that produces a primary current output;
- a secondary cascode amplifier that receives the input voltage signal and that produces a secondary current output that is additive to the primary current output;
- wherein each of the primary cascode amplifier and the secondary cascode amplifier includes:
- a first Metal Oxide Silicon (MOS) transistor having a first gate oxide thickness and a first channel length and a second MOS transistor having a second gate oxide thickness and a second channel length coupled in cascode with the first MOS transistor;
- and
- wherein the second gate oxide thickness is substantially thicker than the first gate oxide thickness.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.