A 21–27 GHz CMOS wideband LNA with 9.3±1.3 dB gain and 103.9±8.1 ps group-delay using standard 0.18 μm CMOS technology

Abstract

A 21-27-GHz wideband low-noise amplifier (LNA) with state-of-the-art phase linearity property (group-delay-variation is only ±8.1 ps across the whole band) using standard 0.18 μm CMOS technology is reported for the first time. To achieve high and flat gain and small group-delay-variation at the same time, the inductive series-peaking technique was adopted in the output of each stage for bandwidth enhancement. The 21-27-GHz wideband LNA dissipated 27 mW power and achieved input return loss (S 11 ) of −13~ −20.1 dB, output return loss (S 22 ) of −8.2~ −30.2 dB, flat forward gain (S 21 ) of 9.3±1.3 dB, reverse isolation (S 12 ) of −52.7~ −73.3 dB, and excellent noise figure (NF) of 4.9~ 6.1 dB over the 21-27 GHz band of interest. The measured input 1-dB compression point (P 1dB-in ) and input third-order intermodulation point (IIP3) were −14 dBm and −4 dBm, respectively, at 24 GHz. The chip area was only 870×450 μm 2 excluding the test pads.

Nanoscale RF CMOS transceiver design

“…As expected the three-stage amplifier exhibits higher NF and dissipates more power. Multi-stage LNAs operating at mmwave frequencies have also been reported in [77,[79][80][81][82][83][84] 2.5 30 GHz LNA -Implementation and Results…”