A power amplifier includes a two-dimensional matrix of NM active cells formed by stacking main terminals of multiple active cells in series. The stacks are coupled in parallel to form the two-dimensional matrix. The power amplifier includes a driver structure to coordinate the driving of the active cells so that the effective output power of the two-dimensional matrix is approximately NM the output power of each of the active cells.

Bias circuits and methods for silicon-based amplifier architectures that are tolerant of supply and bias voltage variations, bias current variations, and transistor stack height, and compensate for poor output resistance characteristics. Embodiments include power amplifiers and low-noise amplifiers that utilize a cascode reference circuit to bias the final stages of a cascode amplifier under the control of a closed loop bias control circuit. The closed loop bias control circuit ensures that the current in the cascode reference circuit is approximately equal to a selected multiple of a known current value by adjusting the gate bias voltage to the final stage of the cascode amplifier. The final current through the cascode amplifier is a multiple of the current in the cascode reference circuit, based on a device scaling factor representing the relative sizes of the transistor devices in the cascode amplifier and in the cascode reference circuit.

A transistor circuit includes a transistor having a gate terminal and first and second conduction terminals, a first circuit configured to convert an AC input signal of the transistor circuit to a gate bias voltage and to apply the gate bias voltage to the gate terminal of the transistor, a second circuit configured to convert the AC input signal of the transistor circuit to a control voltage, and a switching circuit configured to apply a first voltage to the first conduction terminal of the transistor in response to the control voltage.

A circuit includes an active balun having an RF signal input and having differential signal outputs, the active balun including a first pair of transistors coupled to the RF signal input, the first pair of transistors including a first transistor of a first type and a second transistor of a second type, wherein the first type and second type are complementary; and an intermodulation distortion (IMD) sink circuit having an operational amplifier (op amp) coupled between a first node and a second node, wherein the first transistor and second transistor are coupled in series between the first node and the second node.

A wideband highly-linear buffer circuit exhibiting a low output impedance comprises a first PFET (PFET1), a second PFET (PFET2), a first NFET (NFET1), and a second NFET (NFET2). Sources of PFET1 and PFET2 are coupled to VDD. PFET1's drain is coupled to an output lead. PFET2 acts as a current source. NFET1's drain is coupled to PFET2's drain and to PFET1's gate. NFET1's source is coupled to the output lead. NFET2's source is coupled to ground. NFET2's drain is coupled to NFET1's source and to the output lead. NFET1's gate is AC coupled to a first input lead. In a single-ended input example, NFET2's gate is AC coupled NFET1's drain. In a differential input example, NFET2's gate is AC coupled to a second input lead. In another differential input example, PFET2 is not just a current source, but rather PFET2's gate is AC coupled to the first input lead.

A transistor stack can include a combination of floating and body tied devices. Improved performance of the RF amplifier can be obtained by using a single body tied device as the input transistor of the stack, or as the output transistor of the stack, while other transistors of the stack are floating transistors. Transient response of the RF amplifier can be improved by using all body tied devices in the stack.

A receiver front end capable of receiving and processing intraband non-contiguous carrier aggregate (CA) signals using multiple low noise amplifiers (LNAs) is disclosed herein. A cascode having a common source configured input FET and a common gate configured output FET can be turned on or off using the gate of the output FET. A first switch is provided that allows a connection to be either established or broken between the source terminal of the input FET of each LNA. Further switches used for switching degeneration inductors, gate capacitors and gate to ground caps for each legs can be used to further improve the matching performance of the invention.

An amplifier circuit couples one or more selectable input ports to one or more selectable output ports. The circuit includes N input transistors and M output transistors. Each input transistor has its base coupled to a respective input port node, its emitter coupled to ground, and its collector connected to an intermediate node. Each output transistor has its base coupled to a bias node, its emitter connected to the intermediate node, and its collector coupled to a respective output port nodes. Each input transistor enables the respective input port node when its base is biased. Each output transistor enables the respective output port node when its bias node is asserted. The base of the input transistor for each enabled port is biased to provide a quiescent current I0*m/n through that input transistor, where m is the number of enabled output ports and n is the number of enabled input ports.

A switched-capacitor circuit comprising a differential operational amplifier and a feedback circuit is described. In some embodiments, the feedback circuit may be configured to provide a reference voltage that is insensitive to temperature and/or process variations. In some embodiments, the feedback circuit may be configured to mitigate the time delay associated with one or more capacitors of the switched-capacitor circuit. The switched-capacitor circuit may be controlled by a pair of control signals. During a first phase, one or more capacitors may be charged, or discharged, through an input signal. During a second phase, the electric charge of the one or more capacitors may be retained.

A direct current (DC) bias maintenance circuit operably couples to the input of a primary amplifier. The DC bias maintenance circuit employs feedback to maintain the desired DC bias but lacks any coupling to the output of the primary amplifier. By one approach the DC bias maintenance circuit includes a secondary amplifier that replicates at least some near real-time performance characteristics of the primary amplifier. For example, the secondary amplifier can replicate at least certain DC properties of the primary amplifier such that DC-based changes appearing at the output of the primary amplifier are mirrored at an output of the secondary amplifier notwithstanding a lack of any coupling between the output of the primary amplifier and the DC bias maintenance circuit.