A 4.8 mW, 4.4 dB NF, wideband LNA using positively coupled transformer for V-band applications

Author

Agarwal, Prabhakar ; Sah, Suman P. ; Deukhyoun Heo

Author_Institution

Dept. of EECS, Washington State Univ., Pullman, WA, USA

fYear

2014

fDate

1-6 June 2014

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

3

Abstract

In this paper, a V-band ultra-low power Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) with enhanced bandwidth (BW) is presented. A positively coupled cascode transformer (PCCT), formed using cascode inductors at the emitter of the cascode transistors, is used to couple the signal between the first and second stage. Using an optimum coupling factor of 0.23 for the PCCT, a bandwidth improvement of 15 % was seen during simulation. The prototype was implemented using 0.13 μm SiGe BiCMOS technology. Measurements show a peak gain of 13.5 dB, BW > 8 GHz, Noise Figure (NF) of 4.4 dB and an input 1-dB compression point (P_in,1dB) of -19 dBm. The LNA occupies a core area of only 0.05 mm² and consumes 3.7 mA from a 1.3 V supply.

Keywords

BiCMOS analogue integrated circuits; Ge-Si alloys; field effect MIMIC; low noise amplifiers; low-power electronics; millimetre wave amplifiers; semiconductor materials; transformers; wideband amplifiers; BW; BiCMOS technology; PCCT; SiGe; V-band ultra-low power low noise amplifier; cascode inductors; cascode transistor emitter; current 3.7 mA; enhanced bandwidth; frequency 55 GHz to 67 GHz; noise figure 4.4 dB; optimum coupling factor; positively coupled cascode transformer; positively coupled transformer; power 4.8 mW; size 0.13 mum; voltage 1.3 V; wideband LNA; CMOS integrated circuits; CMOS technology; Couplings; Manganese; Prototypes; Silicon germanium; BiCMOS; Low Noise Amplifiers; SiGe; Transformers; V-band; mm-wave;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microwave Symposium (IMS), 2014 IEEE MTT-S International

Conference_Location

Tampa, FL

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MWSYM.2014.6848638

Filename

6848638