A 2.4 GHz 87 uW Low-Noise Amplifier in 65nm CMOS for IoT applications

Abstract

As the Bluetooth devices for the Internet of Things require extremely low power dissipation to maintain longer battery life, a low noise amplifier as the main power-consuming part in the circuit needs more current-efficient topologies on power saving. This paper proposes a low noise transconductance amplifier that combines the techniques of passive impendence transformation, gm-boosting technique, and current reuse, leading to an overall 87 µW power under the 1.2 V power supply. The transformer-based gm-boosted structure applied in the four-transistor-stacked current reuse topology leading to a 12× power saving. The proposed LNA simulated in 65 nm CMOS shows the NF of 3.3 dB and the IIP3 of -8 dBm, respectively, while dissipating 87 µW dc power. Compared to the previous low power LNA, this design has fairly low power consumption and low NF while other performance metrics remain competitive.