A 60 GHz balun low-noise amplifier in 28-nm CMOS for millimeter-wave communication

Abstract

In this paper, a 60 GHz complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) balun low-noise amplifier (LNA) was implemented for millimeter-wave communication. To improve the gain and noise performance, slow-wave coplanar waveguides (S-CPW) with high quality factor were designed as input, output, and inter-stage matching networks. At the input port, a balun transformer provides additional passive gain while performing the singled-ended to differential conversion. Implemented in a 28-nm CMOS process, simulated results show that the proposed LNA exhibits a simulated linear gain of 16 dB and a noise figure of 5.6 dB at 60 GHz, with a 3-dB gain bandwidth of 5 GHz (58 GHz–63 GHz). The input return loss is better than −25 dB at the central frequency. The simulated input third-order intercept point (IIP3) is −5 dBm. The circuit draws 35 mA from 1 V supply voltage.