A novel design of ultra-broadband, high-gain and high-linearity variable gain distributed amplifier in 0.13 μm CMOS technology

Abstract

ABSTRACTA high-gain, high-linearity and ultra-broadband variable gain distributed amplifier (VGDA) based on employing multiple techniques is presented to substantially increase the gain. The complete design is composed of two major parts including a VGDA part followed by a single stage distributed amplifier (SSDA) part. The VGDA part makes it possible to achieve different gain settings. For high gain considerations, the SSDA part cascades with the VGDA part that takes the benefits of the multiplicative gain mechanism. A theory is presented to enhance the linearity without imposing further DC power consumption. This idea has been validated by simulation results as expected. The design is analysed and simulated in the standard 0.13 μm CMOS technology. It presents the large gain tuning range of 35 dB, from –5 dB attenuation gain up to +30 dB maximum amplification gain, in relation to the control voltage (Vctr) that varies between 0.42 and 1.1 V. At the maximum amplification gain setting, it presents a DC up to 16 GHz 3 dB bandwidth, an average noise figure of 3.2 dB and an IIP3 of –2 dB m. Furthermore, it dissipates 46.42 mW from 0.7 and 0.9 V power supplies of the drain lines of VGDA and SSDA parts, respectively. Additionally, the Monte Carlo (MC) simulation has been performed to predict an estimate of the accuracy of performance of the proposed design under various conditions.