Design of low power CMOS ultra wide band low noise amplifier using noise canceling technique

This paper presents a design of a low power CMOS ultra-wideband (UWB) low noise amplifier (LNA) using a noise canceling technique with the TSMC 0.18 μm RF CMOS process. The proposed UWB LNA employs a current-reused structure to decrease the total power consumption instead of using a cascade stage. This structure spends the same DC current for operating two transistors simultaneously. The stagger-tuning technique, which was reported to achieve gain flatness in the required frequency, was adopted to have low and high resonance frequency points over the entire bandwidth from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz. The resonance points were set in 3 GHz and 10 GHz to provide enough gain flatness and return loss. In addition, the noise canceling technique was used to cancel the dominant noise source, which is generated by the first transistor. The simulation results show a flat gain (S₂₁>10 dB) with a good input impedance matching less than –10 dB and a minimum noise figure of 2.9 dB over the entire band. The proposed UWB LNA consumed 15.2 mW from a 1.8 V power supply.     

Design of 3.1–10.6 GHz ultra-wideband CMOS low noise amplifier with current reuse technique

A new low complexity ultra-wideband 3.1–10.6 GHz low noise amplifier (LNA), designed in a chartered 0.18 μm RFCMOS technology, is presented in this paper. The ultra-wideband LNA only consists of two simple amplifiers with an inter-stage inductor connected. The first stage utilizing a resistive current reuse and dual inductive degeneration techniques is used to attain a wideband input matching and low noise figure. A common source amplifier with inductive peaking technique as the second stage achieves high flat gain and wide the −3 dB bandwidth of the overall amplifier simultaneously. The implemented ultra-wideband LNA presents a maximum power gain of 15.6 dB, a high reverse isolation of −45 dB and a good input/output return losses are better than −10 dB in the frequency range of 3.1–10.6 GHz. An excellent noise figure (NF) of 2.8–4.7 dB was obtained in the required band with a power dissipation of 14.1 mW under a supply voltage of 1.5 V. An input-referred third-order intercept point (IIP3) is −7.1 dBm at 6 GHz. The chip area including testing pads is only 0.8 mm × 0.9 mm.     

High linearity technique for ultra-wideband low noise amplifier in 0.18 μm CMOS technology

A linearization technique for ultra-wideband low noise amplifier (UWB LNA) has been designed and fabricated in standard 0.18 μm CMOS technology. The proposed technique exploits the complementary characteristics of NMOS and PMOS to improve the linearity performance. A two-stage UWB LNA is optimized to achieve high linearity over the 3.1-10.6 GHz range. The first stage adopts inverter topology with resistive feedback to provide high linearity and wideband input matching, whereas the second stage is a cascode amplifier with series and shunt inductive peaking techniques to extend the bandwidth and achieve high gain simultaneously. The proposed UWB LNA exhibits a measured flat gain of 15 dB within the entire band, a minimum noise figure of 3.5 dB, and an IIP3 of 6.4 dBm while consuming 8 mA from a 1.8 V power supply. The total chip area is 0.39 mm², including all pads. The measured input return loss is kept below −11 dB, and the output return loss is −8 dB, from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz.     

Design of a fully differential CMOS LNA for 3.1-10.6 GHz UWB communication systems

A fully differential complementary metal oxide semiconductor （CMOS） low noise amplifier （LNA） for 3.1-10.6 GHz ultra-wideband （UWB） communication systems is presented. The LNA adopts capacitive cross-coupling common-gate （CG） topology to achieve wideband input matching and low noise figure （NF）. Inductive series-peaking is used for the LNA to obtain broadband flat gain in the whole 3.1-10.6 GHz band. Designed in 0.18 um CMOS technology, the LNA achieves an NF of 3.1-4.7 dB, an Sll of less than -10 dB, an S21 of 10.3 dB with ±0.4 dB fluctuation, and an input 3rd interception point （IIP3） of -5.1 dBm, while the current consumption is only 4.8 mA from a 1.8 V power supply. The chip area of the LNA is 1×0.94 mm^2.     

A new CMOS wideband low noise amplifier with gain control

In this paper, a new CMOS wideband low noise amplifier (LNA) is proposed that is operated within a range of 470 MHz-3 GHz with current reuse, mirror bias and a source inductive degeneration technique. A two-stage topology is adopted to implement the LNA based on the TSMC 0.18-μm RF CMOS process. Traditional wideband LNAs suffer from a fundamental trade-off in noise figure (NF), gain and source impedance matching. Therefore, we propose a new LNA which obtains good NF and gain flatness performance by integrating two kinds of wideband matching techniques and a two-stage topology. The new LNA can also achieve a tunable gain at different power consumption conditions. The measurement results at the maximum power consumption mode show that the gain is between 11.3 and 13.6 dB, the NF is less than 2.5 dB, and the third-order intercept point (IIP3) is about −3.5 dBm. The LNA consumes maximum power at about 27 mW with a 1.8 V power supply. The core area is 0.55×0.95 mm².     

2.3–21 GHz broadband and high linearity distributed low noise amplifier

This paper focuses on the design of a 2.3–21 GHz Distributed Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) with low noise figure (NF), high gain (S₂₁), and high linearity (IIP3) for broadband applications. This distributed amplifier (DA) includes S/C/X/Ku/K-band, which makes it very suitable for heterodyne receivers. The proposed DA uses a 0.18 μm GaAs pHEMT process (OMMIC ED02AH) in cascade architecture with lines adaptation and equalization of phase velocity techniques, to absorb their parasitic capacitances into the gate and drain transmission lines in order to achieve wide bandwidth and to enhance gain and linearity. The proposed broadband DA achieved an excellent gain in the flatness of 13.5 ± 0.2 dB, a low noise figure of 3.44 ± 1.12 dB, and a small group delay variation of ±19.721 ps over the range of 2.3–21 GHz. The input and output reflection coefficients S₁₁ and S₂₂ are less than −10 dB. The input compression point (P_1dB) and input third-order intercept point (IIP3) are −1.5 dBm and 11.5 dBm, respectively at 13 GHz. The dissipated power is 282 mW and the core layout size is 2.2 × 0.8 mm².     

Ultra low voltage, ultra low power low noise amplifier for 2 GHz applications

In this paper, a 0.29 V, 2 GHz CMOS low noise amplifier (LNA) intended for ultra low voltage and ultra low power applications is developed. The circuit is simulated in standard 0.18 μm CMOS MOSIS. A two-stage architecture is then used to simultaneously optimize the gain and noise performance. Using forward-body-biased, the proposed LNA can operate at 0.29 V supply voltage, successfully demonstrating the application potential of dynamic threshold voltage technology in the radio frequency region. The LNA provides a good gain of 26.25 dB, a noise figure of 2.202 dB, reverse isolation (S₁₂) of −59.04 dB, input return loss (S₁₁) of −122.66 dB and output return loss (S₂₂) of -11.61 dB, while consuming only 0.96mW dc power with an ultra low supply voltage of 0.29 V. To the best of authors’ knowledge this is the lowest voltage supply and the lowest power consumption CMOS LNA design reported for 2 GHz to date.     

A 0.18μm CMOS low noise amplifier using a current reuse technique for 3.1-10.6 GHz UWB receivers

A new,low complexity,ultra-wideband 3.1-10.6 GHz low noise amplifier(LNA),designed in a chartered 0.18μm RFCMOS technology,is presented.The ultra-wideband LNA consists of only two simple amplifiers with an inter-stage inductor connected.The first stage utilizing a resistive current reuse and dual inductive degeneration technique is used to attain a wideband input matching and low noise figure.A common source amplifier with an inductive peaking technique as the second stage achieves high flat gain and wide -3 dB bandwidth of the overall amplifier simultaneously.The implemented ultra-wideband LNA presents a maximum power gain of 15.6 dB,and a high reverse isolation of—45 dB,and good input/output return losses are better than -10 dB in the frequency range of 3.1-10.6 GHz.An excellent noise figure(NF) of 2.8-4.7 dB was obtained in the required band with a power dissipation of 14.1 mW under a supply voltage of 1.5 V.An input-referred third-order intercept point(IIP3) is -7.1 dBm at 6 GHz.The chip area,including testing pads,is only 0.8×0.9 mm2.     

Low power and high gain current reuse LNA with modified input matching and inter-stage inductors

In this paper we present a fully integrated current reuse CMOS LNA (low noise amplifier) with modified input matching circuitry and inductive inter-stage architecture in 0.18 μm CMOS technology. To reduce the large spiral inductors that actually require larger surface area for their fabrication, two parallel LC circuits are used with two small spiral on-chip inductors. Using cascode configuration equipped by parallel inter-stage LCs, we achieved lower power consumption with higher power gain. In this configuration we used two cascoded transistors to have a good output swing suitable for low voltage technology compared to other current reuse configurations. This configuration provides better input matching, lower noise figure and more reverse isolation which is vital in LNA design. Complete analytical simulation of the circuit results in center frequency of 5.5 GHz, with 1.9 dB NF, 50 Ω input impedance, 1 GHz 3 dB power bandwidth, 20.5 dB power gain (S₂₁), high reverse isolation (S₁₂)<−48 dB, −18.5 dB input matching (S₁₁) and −21.3 dB output matching (S₂₂), while dissipating as low power as 2 mW at 1.8 V power supply.     

Post-linearization with image rejection for high IIP3 and image-rejection ratio of a 17 GHz CMOS low noise amplifier

This study develops a post-linearization technique to simultaneously improve the input third-order intercept point (IIP3) and image-rejection ratio (IRR) of a 17 GHz low noise amplifier (LNA) in a 0.18 μm standard CMOS process. A third-order intermodulation distortion (IMD3) compensator constructed by a second-order notch filter was proposed to achieve both high linearity and image reject (IR) of the cascode LNA. The correlation between the post-linearization and IR techniques is analyzed and discussed. The measured LNA achieved a gain of 16.5 dB, a noise figure (NF) of 4.58 dB, an IIP3 of 0 dBm, and an IRR from 68 to 78 dB. The improvements of IIP3 and IRR are 11.7 and 46 dB, respectively, better than that of the LNA without the notch filter. The proposed IR LNA with total current dissipation of 4.8 mA under 1.8 V supply voltage and notch filter only dissipate a DC power of 2 mW.     

A dual mode 2.4-GHz CMOS low noise amplifier employing body biasing

This paper presents a dual mode CMOS low noise amplifier (LNA) suitable for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access applications, at 2.4?GHz. The design concept is based on body biasing. An off chip Digital to Analog Converter is used to generate the proper body bias voltage to control the LNA gain and linearity. Measurement results show that in the high gain mode, for V _BS?=?0.3?V, the cascode LNA, implemented in a 0.13???m CMOS standard process, exhibits a 14?dB power gain, a 3.6?dB noise figure (NF) and ?4.6?dBm of third order intercept point (IIP3) for a 4?mA current consumption under 1?V supply. Tuning V _BS to ?0.55?V, switches the LNA into the low gain mode. It achieves 8.6?dB power gain, 6.2?dB NF and 6?dBm IIP3 under a constrained power consumption of 1.7?mW.     

（英）CMOS毫米波低功耗超宽带共栅低噪声放大器

本文陈述了一个基于单端共栅与共源共栅级联结构的超宽带低噪声放大器(LNA)。该LNA用标准90-nm RF CMOS工艺实现并具有如下特征：在28.5到39 GHz频段内测得的平坦增益大于10 dB;-3 dB带宽从27到42 GHz达到了15 GHz,这几乎覆盖了整个Ka带;最小噪声系数(NF)为4.2 dB,平均NF在27-42 GHz频段内为5.1 dB;S₁₁在整个测试频段内小于-11 dB。40 GHz处输入三阶交调点(IIP3)的测试值为 2 dBm。整个电路的直流功耗为5.3 mW。包括焊盘在内的芯片面积为0.58*0.48 mm2_。     

Design of low power UWB LNA based on common source topology with current-reused technique

This paper presents two low power UWB LNAs with common source topology. The power reduction is achieved by the current-reused technique. The gain and noise enhancement of the proposed circuit is based on an output buffer which is used by a common source amplifier with shunt–shunt feedback. Chip1 is an adopted T-match input network of 50 Ω matching in the required band. Measurements show that the S₁₁ and S₂₂ are less than −10 dB, and the maximum amplifier gain S₂₁ gives 9.7 dB, and the noise figure is 4.2 dB, the IIP3 is −8.5 dBm, and the power consumption is 11 mW from 1.1 V supply voltage. The input matching of chip2 is adopted from a LC high pass filter and source degenerated inductor. The output buffer with the RC-feedback topology can improve the gain, increase the IIP3, restrain the noise, improve the noise figure and decrease the DC power dissipation. Measurements show 13.2 dB of power gain, 3.33 dB of noise figure, and the IIP3 is −3.3 dBm. It consumes 9.3 mW from 1.5 V supply voltage. These two chips are implemented in a 0.18 μm TSMC CMOS process.     

Linearization technique using bipolar transistor at 5 GHz low noise amplifier

A CMOS low noise amplifier (LNA) used in wireless communication systems, such as WLAN and CDMA, must have low noise figure, high linearity, and sufficient gain. Several techniques have been proposed to improve the linearity of CMOS LNA circuits. The proposed low noise amplifier achieves high third-order input intercept point (IIP3) using multi-gated configuration technique, by using two transistors, the first is the main CMOS transistor, and the second is bipolar transistor in TSMC 0.18 m technology. Bipolar transistor is used to cancel the third-order component from MOS transistor to fulfill high linearity operation. This work is designed and fabricated in TSMC 0.18 m CMOS process. At 5 GHz, the proposed LNA achieves a measurement results as 16 dBm of IIP3, 10.5 dB of gain, 2.1 dB of noise figure, and 8 mW of power consumption.     

A full-band UWB common-gate band-pass noise matched g m -boosted series peaked CMOS differential LNA

This paper presents a low-power noise-matched fully-differential common-gate (CG) low noise amplifier (LNA) for ultrawideband receiver operating in the full 3.1–10.6 GHz band. Performance was optimized by employing the transconductance ‘g _m ’ boosted CG LNA topology with series peaking along with an input noise matching network. A common source g _m -boosting amplifier, in conjunction with an LC T-network, was used to share the bias current with the CG stage. The LNA was demonstrated using a 130 nm IBM CMOS process technology and it consumed 7 mW from a 1 V supply. It exhibited an input return loss (S₁₁) and an output return loss (S₂₂) of ?10.5 and ?14 dB respectively. In addition, it also achieved a forward power gain (S₂₁) of 14.5 dB and a noise figure between 4.5 and 5.0 dB.     

3．1～10．6GHz超宽带低噪声放大器的设计

基于SIMC0．18μmRFCMOS工艺技术,设计了可用于3．1—10．6GHzMB—OFDM超宽带接收机射频前端的CMOS低噪声放大器（LNA）。该LNA采用三级结构：第一级是共栅放大器,主要用来进行输入端的匹配;第二级是共源共栅放大器,用来在低频段提供较高的增益;第三级依然为共源共栅结构,用来在高频段提供较高的增益,从而补偿整个频带的增益使得增益平坦度更好。仿真结果表明：在电源电压为1．8v的条件下,所设计的LNA在3．1～10．6GHz的频带范围内增益（521）为20dB左右,具有很好的增益平坦性f±0．4dB）,回波损耗S11、S22均小于-10dB,噪声系数为4．5dB左右,IIP3为-5dBm,PIdB为0dBm。     

0.18 μm 3.1-10.6 GHz CMOS UWB LNA with 11.4±0.4 dB gain and 100.7± 17.4 ps group-delay

A3.1-10.6 GHz ultra-wideband low-noise amplifier (UWB LNA) with excellent phase linearity property (group-delay-variation is only plusmn17.4 ps across the whole band) using standard 0.18 mum CMOS technology is reported. To achieve high and flat gain and small group-delay-variation at the same time, the inductive peaking technique is adopted in the output stage for bandwidth enhancement. The UWB LNA dissipates 22.7 mW power and achieves input return loss (S₁₁) of -9.7 to -19.9 dB, output return loss (S22) of-8.4 to -22.5 dB, flat forward gain (S21) 11.4 plusmn0.4 dB, reverse isolation (S12) of -40 to -48 dB, and noise figure of 4.12-5.16 dB over the 3.1-10.6 GHz band of interest. A good 1 dB compression point (Pi dB) of -7.86 dBm and an input third-order intermodulation point (IIP3) of 0.72 dBm are achieved at 6.4 GHz. The chip area is only 681 x 657 mum excluding the test pads.     

A UWB CMOS low-noise amplifier with noise reduction and linearity improvement techniques

In this paper, a highly linear CMOS low noise amplifier (LNA) for ultra-wideband applications is presented. The proposed LNA improves both input second- and third-order intercept points (IIP2 and IIP3) by canceling the common-mode part of all intermodulation components from the output current. The proposed LNA structure creates equal common-mode currents with the opposite sign by cascading two differential pairs with a cross-connected output. These currents eliminate each other at the output and improve the linearity. Also, the proposed LNA improves the noise performance by canceling the thermal noise of the input and auxiliary transistors at the output. Detailed analysis is provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed LNA structure. Post-layout circuit level simulation results using a 90 nm RF CMOS process with Spectre-RF reveal 9.5 dB power gain, -3 dB bandwidth (BW_−3dB) of 8 GHz from 2.4 GHz to 10.4 GHz, and mean IIP3 and IIP2 of +13.1 dBm and +42.8 dBm, respectively. The simulated S₁₁ is less than −11 dB in whole frequency range while the LNA consumes 14.8 mW from a single 1.2 V power supply.     

Low power high gain CMOS LNA based on inverter cell and self-body bias for UWB receivers

A low-power low-noise amplifier (LNA) utilized a resistive inverter configuration feedback amplifier to achieve the broadband input matching purposes. To achieve low power consumption and high gain, the proposed LNA utilizes a current-reused technique and a splitting-load inductive peaking technique of a resistive-feedback inverter for input matching. Two wideband LNAs are implemented by TSMC 0.18 μm CMOS technology. The first LNA operates at 2–6 GHz. The minimum noise figure is 3.6 dB. The amplifier provides a maximum gain (S₂₁) of 18.5 dB while drawing 10.3 mW from a 1.5-V supply. This chip area is 1.028×0.921 mm². The second LNA operates at 3.1–10.6 GHz. By using self-forward body bias, it can reduce supply voltage as well as save bias current. The minimum noise figure is 4.8 dB. The amplifier provides a maximum gain (S₂₁) of 17.8 dB while drawing 9.67 mW from a 1.2-V supply. This chip area is 1.274×0.771 mm².     

A Compact Wideband CMOS Low-Noise Amplifier Using Shunt Resistive-Feedback and Series Inductive-Peaking Techniques

A wideband low-noise amplifier (LNA) with shunt resistive-feedback and series inductive-peaking is proposed for wideband input matching, broadband power gain and flat noise figure (NF) response. The proposed wideband LNA is implemented in 0.18-mum CMOS technology. Measured results show that power gain is greater than 10 dB and input return loss is below -10 dB from 2 to 11.5 GHz. The IIP3 is about +3 dBm, and the NF ranges from 3.1 to 4.1 dB over the band of interest. An excellent agreement between the simulated and measured results is found and attributed to less number of passive components needed in this circuit compared with previous designs. Besides, the ratio of figure-of- merit to chip size is as high as 190 (mW^-1 /mm² ) which is the best results among all previous reported CMOS-based wideband LNA.