A novel high dynamic range differential LNA using quartet topology

Abstract

In some applications such as short-range radars, a large target can desensitize the receiver. A high dynamic range low-noise amplifier (LNA), as a key component of a transmitter/receiver module, can improve the entire system performance. This study presents a high dynamic range differential LNA that uses a differential quartet topology for the first time. The LNA shows more linearity than the conventional differential common source LNAs. For a typical 0.18 µm CMOS technology, it achieves a power gain of about 5.5 dB at 24 GHz, a low noise figure (NF) of 3.5 dB, very good linearity performance, an input-referred third-order intercept point (IIP3) of + 6.3 dBm, and an input-referred 1 dB compression point (P1dB) of − 4.5 dBm.