A Novel Gain Cell Based Ultra-broadband, Low Power, High Gain and High Linearity Distributed Amplifier in 0.13-μm CMOSTechnology

In this paper, the design and characterizations of a novel ultra-broadband, low power, high gain and highlinearity CMOS distributed amplifier (CMOS-DA) are presented. The proposed design shapes based on a new gain cellthat adopts multiple techniques to substantially increase the gain and to reduce the power dissipation. Combining theself cascode, active cascode, and cascaded techniques in designing the new gain cell leads to a significantly high gainand low power consumption CMOS-DA, at the same time. The proposed CMOS-DA is capable to operate at two modesincluding high gain (HG) and low gain (LG) modes. The new CMOS-DA is simulated in a 0.13-μm CMOS processwhich simulation results at the HG mode illustrate a high power gain response of 20 ± 0.5 dB and a broad 3-dBbandwidth of 11 GHz and also, at LG mode achieve a 3-dB bandwidth of 12.5 GHz and a power gain of 12.5 ± 0.4 dB.The simulated average noise figure (NF) at HG mode is 5 dB, and it is 5.2 dB at LG mode, respectively. The IIP3 andinput referred 1-dB compression point are simulated which they achieve +14 dBm and -14 dBm at 6 GHz at HG modeand +11 dBm and -10 dBm at 7 GHz at LG mode, respectively. The power consumptions of 21.36 mW from a 0.9 Vdrain line’s supply at HG mode and 9.5 mW from a 0.8 V drain line’s supply at LG mode are dissipated.

Keywords:

Active cascode amplifier , self cascode , CMOS distributed amplifier , ultra-broadband , high-gain