A low-power 3.1–10.6 GHz ultra-wideband CMOS low-noise amplifier with common-gate input stage

Abstract

A low-power ultra-wideband (UWB) low-noise amplifier (LNA) is proposed exploiting a current-reused technique operating in the frequency range of 3.1–10.6 GHz. The technique stacks two-stage amplifiers in dc, thereby reusing the dc current and saving the power consumption significantly. With the common-gate configuration at the input stage, broad-band input matching is obtained with less than −5 dB input reflection coefficient in 3–10 GHz frequency range. Fabricated with 0.18-μm RFCMOS technology, the proposed LNA achieves about 10 dB power gain and noise figure (NF) of 4.6–7.8 dB within 3 dB bandwidth of 2.2–9.7 GHz. The LNA core excluding the buffer consumes only 2.9 mW from a 1.8 V supply voltage. The input third order intercept point (IIP3) of the LNA is −8.5 dBm at 6 GHz.