A Low-Voltage Low-Power Ultra-Wideband Inductorless CMOS LNA Using gm-Boosted Technique

In this paper, we present the design process of an Inductorless ultra-wideband LNA for low-voltage low-power applications. The circuit benefits from gm-enhancementtechnique. This technique provides a high gain and low Noise- Figure(NF) inspite of low intrinsic gm of MOS transistors. Themain performance metrics are analyzed. In order to achievethis purpose, two different CMOS technology processes are considered: 180 nm and 130 nm. Simulation results show that for the LNA designed in 180 nm, the power gain reaches a peak of 13.06 dB in-band with an upper 3-dB frequency of 4.0GHz. The noise figure(NF) ranges from 2.83-3.32 dB over the band of interest and the LNA consumes 6.3 mW at 1.8V supplyvoltage. In 130 nm technology, the LNA exhibits a 11.03 dBgain while dissipating 4.2 mW at 1.2V supply. A figure of merit is used to compare the proposed design with recently published wideband CMOS LNAs. It is shown that the designed LNA without on-chip inductors achieves comparable performances with inductor-based designs.

Keywords:

Low noise amplifier(LNA) , Inductorless , Noise Figure(NF) , Capacitive Cross-Coupling(CCC) Technique , Ultrawideband(UWB)