Use of the overdrive voltage in the design of an internally matched MMIC low noise amplifier

Author

Min, Ben Ooi Zee ; Ling, Wong Chee ; Wei, Hoh Cheng ; Jun, Leong Bi

fYear

2012

fDate

15-17 April 2012

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

10

Abstract

A method of biasing low noise amplifiers using the concept of overdrive voltage, V_od is introduced. The RF parameters of different FET sizes are measured against V_od to determine the optimum biasing points for good noise figure and OIP3. It was determined that the best biasing for low noise figures is between 0.15 to 0.25V and for OIP3 is 0.28 to 0.32V. Through careful selection of the biasing architecture, this concept is then applied to the design of a low noise amplifier employing a source degeneration technique. This resulted in the design of Mini-Circuit´s PSA4-5043+ broadband low noise MMIC amplifier which is internally matched and having a typical noise figure of 0.65dB at 1 GHz and 0.9dB at 4GHz using a 0.5um pHEMT process.

Keywords

MMIC amplifiers; high electron mobility transistors; low noise amplifiers; FET sizes; OIP3; RF parameters; biasing architecture; field effect transistors; frequency 1 GHz; frequency 4 GHz; internally matched MMIC low noise amplifier design; low noise figures; minicircuit PSA4-5043+ broadband LNA; noise figure 0.65 dB; noise figure 0.9 dB; optimum biasing points; overdrive voltage; pHEMT process; size 0.5 mum; source degeneration technique; Logic gates; Mirrors; Noise; Noise figure; PHEMTs; Resistors;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Wireless and Microwave Technology Conference (WAMICON), 2012 IEEE 13th Annual

Conference_Location

Cocoa Beach, FL

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-0129-9

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4673-0128-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/WAMICON.2012.6208470

Filename

6208470