Low noise linear and wideband transconductance amplifier design for current-mode frontend

Abstract

A low-noise transconductance amplifier (LNTA) aimed at current-mode (Saw-less, Software-define radio) wideband receiver frontend is presented. In this application, the LNTA operates with a capacitive load to provide high linearity and sufficient G m gain over a wide frequency band. By combination of various circuit techniques the LNTA, which is designed in 65 nm CMOS, achieves in simulation the noise figure in range [1–1.34] dB and linearity of maximum IIP3 = 16.5 dBm over 0.5–6 GHz band. The maximum transconductance G m = 12.9 mS, the return loss S11 < −10 dB while the total power consumption is 4 mW for 1.2 V supply.