A low supply voltage SiGe LNA for ultra-wideband frontends

A low-power low-noise amplifier (LNA) for ultra-wideband (UWB) radio systems is presented. The microwave monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC) has been fabricated using a commercial 0.25-/spl mu/m silicon-germanium (SiGe) bipolar CMOS (BiCMOS) technology. The amplifier uses peaking and feedback techniques to optimize its gain, bandwidth and impedance matching. It operates from 3.4 to 6.9GHz, which corresponds with the low end of the available UWB radio spectrum. The LNA has a peak gain of 10dB and a noise figure less than 5dB over the entire bandwidth. The circuit consumes only 3.5mW using a 1-V supply voltage. A figure of merit (FoM) for LNAs considering bandwidth, gain, noise, power consumption, and technology is proposed. The realized LNA circuit is compared with other recently published low-power LNA designs and shows the highest reported FoM.     

Development of Integrated Broad-Band CMOS Low-Noise Amplifiers

This paper presents a systematic design methodology for broad-band CMOS low-noise amplifiers (LNAs). The feedback technique is proposed to attain a better design tradeoff between gain and noise. The network synthesis is adopted for the implementation of broad-band matching networks. The sloped interstage matching is used for gain compensation. A fully integrated ultra-wide-band 0.18-mum CMOS LNA is developed following the design methodology. The measured noise figure is lower than 3.8 dB from 3 to 7.5 GHz, resulting in the excellent average noise figure of 3.48 dB. Operated on a 1.8-V supply, the LNA delivers 19.1-dB power gain and dissipates 32 mW of power. The gain-bandwidth product of the UWB LNA reaches 358 GHz, the record number for the 0.18-m CMOS broad-band amplifiers. The total chip size of the CMOS UWB LNA is 1.37 times 1.19 mm².     

Design and implementation of UWB CMOS LC filters LNA for carrier less impulse radio receivers

The design and the implementation of Ultra-wide-band (UWB) CMOS LC filter LNA for Ultra Wide Band carrier less Impulse Radio receivers is presented. Architectures for both single ended and differential ended LNA are proposed for small fractional bandwidths such as the ECC frequency band and for large fractional bandwidths such as FCC frequency band. Simple guidelines to achieve large voltage gain and low noise figure are given. The implementation in standard CMOS technologies in the context of integrated receivers is discussed and simple layout rules allowing reliable designs are proposed. Several LNA prototypes for different fractional bandwidths have been fabricated in a 0.13 μm CMOS technology. Measurement results agree well with the simulations.     

A 0.6-V Low Power UWB CMOS LNA

This paper presents the design of a low-power ultra-wideband low noise amplifier in 0.18-mum CMOS technology. The inductive degeneration is applied to the conventional distributed amplifier design to reduce the broadband noise figure under low power operation condition. A common-source amplifier is cascaded to the distributed amplifier to improve the gain at high frequency and extend the bandwidth. Operated at 0.6V, the integrated UWB CMOS LNA consumes 7mW. The measured gain of the LNA is 10dB with the bandwidth from 2.7 to 9.1GHz. The input and output return loss is more than 10dB. The noise figure of the LNA varies from 3.8 to 6.9dB, with the average noise figure of 4.65dB. The low power consumption of this work leads to the excellent figure of gain-bandwidth product (GBP) per milliwatt     

An ultra-wideband CMOS low noise amplifier for 3-5-GHz UWB system

An ultra-wideband (UWB) CMOS low noise amplifier (LNA) topology that combines a narrowband LNA with a resistive shunt-feedback is proposed. The resistive shunt-feedback provides wideband input matching with small noise figure (NF) degradation by reducing the Q-factor of the narrowband LNA input and flattens the passband gain. The proposed UWB amplifier is implemented in 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS technology for a 3.1-5-GHz UWB system. Measurements show a -3-dB gain bandwidth of 2-4.6GHz, a minimum NF of 2.3 dB, a power gain of 9.8 dB, better than -9 dB of input matching, and an input IP3 of -7dBm, while consuming only 12.6 mW of power.     

6?10 GHz ultra-wideband CMOS LNA

A two-stage matched ultra-wideband CMOS low noise amplifier (LNA) is presented. The LNA is designed to achieve a low noise figure with high voltage gain. The LNA fabricated in a 0.13 mum CMOS process shows a 3.9 dB average noise figure with a 27 dB voltage gain in the 6-10 GHz frequency band with a power consumption of 14 mW.     

A novel CMOS low-noise amplifier design for 3.1- to 10.6-GHz ultra-wide-band wireless receivers

An ultra-wideband (UWB) 3.1- to 10.6-GHz low-noise amplifier (LNA) employing a common-gate stage for wideband input matching is presented in this paper. Designed in a commercial 0.18-/spl mu/m 1.8-V standard RFCMOS technology, the proposed UWB LNA achieves fully on-chip circuit implementation, contributing to the realization of a single-chip CMOS UWB receiver. The proposed UWB LNA achieves 16.7/spl plusmn/0.8 dB power gain with a good input match (S11<-9 dB) over the 7500-MHz bandwidth (from 3.1 GHz to 10.6 GHz), and an average noise figure of 4.0 dB, while drawing 18.4-mA dc biasing current from the 1.8-V power supply. A gain control mechanism is also introduced for the first time in the proposed design by varying the biasing current of the gain stage without influencing the other figures of merit of the circuit so as to accommodate the UWB LNA in various UWB wireless transmission systems with different link budgets.     

A Low-Noise Amplifier With Tunable Interference Rejection for 3.1- to 10.6-GHz UWB Systems

An ultrawideband common-gate low noise amplifier with tunable interference rejection is presented. The proposed LNA embeds a tunable active notch filter to eliminate interferer at 5-GHz WLAN and employs a common-gate input stage and dual-resonant loads for wideband implementation. This LNA has been fabricated in a 0.18-$mu$m CMOS process. The measured maximum power gain is 13.2 dB and noise figure is 4.5–6.2 dB with bandwidth of 3.1–10.6 GHz. The interferer rejection is 8.2 dB compared to the maximum gain and 7.6 dB noise figure at 5.2 GHz , respectively. The measured input P1dB is ${-} $11 dBm at 10.3 GHz. It consumes 12.8 mA from 1.8-V supply voltage.      

A Low-Power Self-Forward-Body-Bias CMOS LNA for 3–6.5-GHz UWB Receivers

A low-power low-noise amplifier (LNA) implemented in 0.18 $mu$m CMOS technology utilizing a self-forward-body-bias (SFBB) technique is proposed for UWB low-frequency band system. By using the SFBB technique, it reduces supply voltage as well as saves additional bias circuits, which leads to low power consumption of 4.5 mW with low supply voltage of 1.06 V for two drain-to-source voltage drops. The complementary architecture and direct coupling technique between the first two stages also save bias circuits. The measurement result shows that the proposed LNA presents a maximum power gain of 16 dB with a good input impedance matching (${rm S}11 < - 12$ dB) and an average noise figure of 2.65 dB in the frequency range of 3–6.5 GHz.      

Two CMOS LNAs Sharing the Same On-Chip Inductors and Bias Network

An area-efficient design for two 2.4 GHz CMOS LNAs is presented, by sharing the on-chip inductors and bias network. Compared with LNA1, LNA2 features a new technique to improve the linearity of CMOS LNA, achieving a much higher IIP3 with the tradeoff of voltage gain and noise figure.     

0.5 V ultra-low power wideband LNA with forward body bias technique

An ultra-low power wideband CMOS low noise amplifier (LNA) fabricated in TSMC 0.18 μm RF CMOS process for sub 1 GHz applications is presented. The capacitive cross-coupled LNA with forwardbody- bias (FBB) technique is adopted to achieve wideband input impedance matching and low power, low noise factor. The LNA is tested in the frequency range of 400?900 MHz, and exhibits a voltage gain of 18.5?20.7 dB, and a noise figure of 2.95 dB, drawing only 0.385 mW from 0.5 V power supply.     

Design method for broadband CMOS RF LNA

A design method for a broadband RF CMOS low noise amplifier (LNA) is presented. The shape of the transfer function fits the classical filtering response such as Butterworth or Tchebycheff. This method uses an input matching cell with only parallel LC resonators coupled with admittance inverters realised by series coupling capacitors. An LNA for the 7.2 to 8.6 GHz frequency band designed with this method in a 0.13 /spl mu/m RF CMOS process shows a 3.9 dB noise figure with a voltage gain of 28 dB at 8 GHz with a power consumption of 3.9 mW and a surface consumption of 0.4 mm/sup 2/.     

A low-power and high-gain fully integrated CMOS LNA

In this paper, we present the design of a fully integrated CMOS low noise amplifier (LNA) with on-chip spiral inductors in 0.18 μm CMOS technology for 2.4 GHz frequency range. Using cascode configuration, lower power consumption with higher voltage and power gain are achieved. In this configuration, we managed to have a good trade off among low noise, high gain, and stability. Using common-gate (CG) configuration, we reduced the parasitic effects of C_gd and therefore alleviated the stability and linearity of the amplifier. This configuration provides more reverse isolation that is also important in LNA design. The LNA presented here offers a good noise performance. Complete simulation analysis of the circuit results in center frequency of 2.4 GHz, with 37.6 dB voltage gain, 2.3 dB noise figure (NF), 50 Ω input impedance, 450 MHz 3 dB power bandwidth, 11.2 dB power gain (S₂₁), high reverse isolation (S₁₂)<−60 dB, while dissipating 2.7 mW at 1.8 V power supply.     

Design of a High Performance 2-GHz Direct-Conversion Front-End With a Single-Ended RF Input in 0.13 $mu$m CMOS

A 2.1 GHz CMOS front-end with a single-ended low-noise amplifier (LNA) and a double balanced, current-driven passive mixer is presented. The LNA drives an on-chip transformer load that performs single-ended to differential conversion. A detailed comparison in gain, noise, and second and third order linearity performance is presented to motivate the choice of a current-driven passive mixer over an active mixer. The front-end prototype was implemented on a 0.13 $mu$m CMOS process and occupies an active chip area of 1.1 mm $^{2}$. It achieves 30 dB conversion gain, a low noise figure of 3.1 dB (integrated from 40 KHz to 1.92 MHz), an in-band IIP3 of ${-}$12 dBm, and IIP2 better than 39 dBm, while consuming only 12 mW from a 1.5 V power supply.      

Design a novel 5.8 GHz wideband low noise amplifier in CMOS technology for WLAN applications

A novel complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) low noise amplifier (LNA) was designed in this paper for wireless local area network (WLAN) applications in the 5.8?GHz ISM band. The LNA presents low voltage and low power dissipation design integrated in TSMC 0.18?µm standard CMOS technology and achieves a gain of 15.2?dB, a noise figure of 2.5?dB and an IIP3 of ?6.5?dBm with input return loss ?38.5?dB, output return loss of ?46.1?dB while dissipating just 4.96 mW from a 1V supply voltage.     

0.18 /spl mu/m 3-6 GHz CMOS broadband LNA for UWB radio

A 3-6 GHz CMOS broadband low noise amplifier (LNA) for ultra-wideband (UWB) radio is presented. The LNA is fabricated with the 0.18 /spl mu/m 1P6M standard CMOS process. Measurement of the CMOS LNA is performed using an FR-4 PCB test fixture. From 3 to 6 GHz, the broadband LNA exhibits a noise figure of 4.7-6.7 dB, a gain of 13-16 dB, and an input/output return loss higher than 12/10 dB, respectively. The input P/sub 1 dB/ and input IP3 (IIP3) at 4.5 GHz are about -14 and -5 dBm, respectively. The DC supply is 1.8 V.     

一种CMOS超宽带LNA的优化设计方法

 为实现性能更优的超宽带(UWB)射频前端低噪声放大器(LNA),本文提出了一种通用的基于CMOS工艺的超宽带LNA优化设计方法.基于源端电感负反馈的LNA电路模型,本文提出利用最优化的数学方法分别确定晶体管尺寸、输入匹配网络和负载网络各元件参数的方法,实现了较好的输入阻抗匹配,达到了较高的增益、较好的增益平坦度以及优秀的噪声系数,并具有较低的功耗;本设计方法所用无源元件不但适宜CMOS集成,而且对工艺偏差具有一定的忍耐力.仿真结果说明用上述方法设计的超宽带LNA在工作频带内能够达到预期的各项性能要求.     

A 1.5-V 2–9.6-GHz Inductorless Low-Noise Amplifier in 0.13-μm CMOS

This paper presents an inductorless low-noise amplifier (LNA) design for an ultra-wideband (UWB) receiver front-end. A current-reuse gain-enhanced noise canceling architecture is proposed, and the properties and limitations of the gain-enhancement stage are discussed. Capacitive peaking is employed to improve the gain flatness and -3-dB bandwidth, at the cost of absolute gain value. The LNA circuit is fabricated in a 0.13-mum triple-well CMOS technology. Measurement result shows that a small-signal gain of 11 dB and a -3-dB bandwidth of 2-9.6 GHz are obtained. Over the -3-dB bandwidth, the input return loss is less than -8.3 dB, and the noise figure is 3.6-4.8 dB. The LNA consumes 19 mW from a low supply voltage of 1.5 V. It is shown that the LNA designed without on-chip inductors achieves comparable performances with inductor-based designs. The silicon area is reduced significantly in the inductorless design, the LNA core occupies only 0.05 mm², which is among the smallest reported designs.     

A Fully Integrated 5 GHz Low-Voltage LNA Using Forward Body Bias Technology

A fully integrated 5 GHz low-voltage and low-power low noise amplifier (LNA) using forward body bias technology, implemented through a 0.18 $mu{rm m}$ RF CMOS technology, is demonstrated. By employing the current-reused and forward body bias technique, the proposed LNA can operate at a reduced supply voltage and power consumption. The proposed LNA delivers a power gain (S21) of 10.23 dB with a noise figure of 4.1 dB at 5 GHz, while consuming only 0.8 mW dc power with a low supply voltage of 0.6 V. The power consumption figure of merit $(FOM_{1})$ and the tuning-range figure of merit $(FOM_{2})$ are optimal at 12.79 dB/mW and 2.6 ${rm mW}^{-1}$, respectively. The chip area is 0.89 $,times,$0.89 ${rm mm}^{2}$.      

Low power LNA using the MOSFETs in moderate inversion

This paper presents an integrated complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) low power low noise amplifier (LNA) for global positioning system (GPS) receivers.To achieve low power dissipation,the MOS transistors in the proposed LNA are biased in moderate inversion region.It is implemented by SMIC 180 nm 1P6M CMOS process.The experiment results show that a gain of 12.14 dB@1.57 GHz is achieved with low noise figure (NF) of 1.62 dB.The power consumption of the circuit is 1.5 mW at supply voltage of 1.8 V.The ratio of gain to dc power consumption is 8 dB/mW.The size of the LNA is only 980μm× 720μm including the pads.