High gain 0.18 μm-GaAs MMIC cascode-distributed low-noise amplifier for UWB application

Abstract

This paper describes a design of 3 GHz–12 GHz MMIC distributed Low Noise Amplifiers (LNAs) for Ultra Wideband communications systems. The proposed circuit is a common source and cascode topology using a standard 0.18 μm ED02AH process from OMMIC foundry. The ultra-wideband LNA achieves a power gain of 16.9 ± 1.7 dB and an average noise figure of 2.9 ± 0.58 dB. The input and output reflection coefficients are less than −10 dB, the reverse gain S12 is less than −37dB and a high linearity IIP3 of [4–6.2] dBm. The chip area including testing pads is only about 1.3 × 1.3 mm2.