A CMOS low noise transconductance amplifier for 1–6 GHz bands

Abstract The linearity and noise requirements in multi-band multi-standard applications make the design of RF CMOS circuits a very challenging task. A low noise transconductance amplifier (LNTA) in 130 nm CMOS technology that operates between 1 and 6 GHz is presented. The LNTA is based on a shunt-fe...
Ausführliche Beschreibung

Abstract The linearity and noise requirements in multi-band multi-standard applications make the design of RF CMOS circuits a very challenging task. A low noise transconductance amplifier (LNTA) in 130 nm CMOS technology that operates between 1 and 6 GHz is presented. The LNTA is based on a shunt-feedback (SFB) amplifier with current-reuse scheme and employing the noise-canceling technique used in low-noise amplifier designs for wideband input matching. Two versions of the LNTA were designed in a 130 nm CMOS process and occupy 0.038 and 0.014 $ mm^{2} $ of silicon area while consuming just 9.1 and 7.94 mW, respectively. The second version is an inductorless, smaller, and optimized version of the first one. Post-layout simulations in the temperature range of −40 to 125 °C show a good trade-off between noise and power-consumption across the frequency span with an average noise figure of 3.8 dB and a minimum transconductance of 41.5 mS over the entire band. Performance variations were estimated at 2 GHz with Monte Carlo analysis. Ausführliche Beschreibung