Design of an ESD-Protected Ultra-Wideband LNA in Nanoscale CMOS for Full-Band Mobile TV Tuners

Abstract

This paper presents an electrostatic discharge (ESD)-protected ultra-wideband (UWB) low-noise amplifier (LNA) for full-band (170-to-1700 MHz) mobile TV tuners. It features a PMOS-based open-source input structure to optimize the I/O swings under a mixed-voltage ESD protection while offering an inductorless broadband input impedance match. The amplification core exploiting double current reuse and single-stage thermal-noise cancellation enhances the gain and noise performances with high power efficiency. Optimized in a 90-nm 1.2/2.5-V CMOS process with practical issues taken into account, the LNA using a constant-gm bias circuit achieves competitive and robust performances over process, voltage and temperature variation. The simulated voltage gain is 20.6 dB, noise figure is 2.4 to 2.7 dB, and IIP3 is +10.8 dBm . The power consumption is 9.6 mW at 1.2 V. |S11| < -10 dB is achieved up to 1.9 GHz without needing any external resonant network. Human Body Model ESD zapping tests of plusmn4 kV at the input pins cause no failure of any device.