A Low Voltage High Gain Transformer Noise-Canceling Current Mode Ultrawideband CMOS Low Noise Amplifier

Abstract

This paper presents a novel current mode differential UWB LNA. A common-gate stage with transformer realizes a low noise input matching and produces a current gain. The output of the LNA is differential current, which can avoid the current-to-voltage conversion. The LNA is simulated with TSMC 0.18 μm RF CMOS process. Simulation results show that the max noise figure is only 2.65 dB, transconductance gain is larger than 18.7 dB, input reflection coefficient is lower than -9.9 dB, and third order input intercept point is about 2.8 dBm over 3–5 GHz. With a voltage of 0.8 V, the power consumption is 11 mW. A comparison with conventional UWB LNA shows that this LNA has advantages of low voltage, low noise, high gain, and high linearity.