Design and Implementation of a wideband LNA with compatible RF-MEMS component for IEEE 802.11a Applications

This paper presents a design methodology of a low noise and low power fully-integrated LNA, targeted to all the three bands of IEEE 802.11a WLAN applications in the 5-6 GHz band and using Austria Micro Systems (AMS) 0.35 mum SiGe BiCMOS HBT technology. We emphasized in this paper the importance of parasitic component extraction through the use of electromagnetic simulations, which is usually ignored in the literature of similar works/research when reporting noise figure. Also, we show a method for improving the noise figure (NF) performance of the LNA using RF-MEMS-based inductors. Finally, we have obtained a SiGe HBT on-chip matched LNA, exhibiting NF of 2.75 dB, gain of >15 dB, input return loss of < -15 dB, output return loss of < -10 dB. The circuit consumes only 10.6 mW under 3.3 V supply voltage. The circuit die area is 595times925 mum², including measurement pads