Improving noise and linearity of CMOS wideband inductorless balun LNAs for 10-GHz software-defined radios in 28nm FDSOI

Abstract

This paper presents the analysis and optimization of inductorless balun low-noise amplifiers (LNA) in a 28-nm fully-depleted SOI CMOS technology for wideband universal software-defined radio transceivers by means of an algorithm that optimizes the main figures of merit. An optimum combination of two techniques is provided leading to a new topology that overcomes the main tradeoffs of the previous circuits improving both linearity and noise with competitive bandwidth (BW), gain and power. Post-layout simulations show a BW of 10 GHz, a gain of 17 dB, an IIP3 of 7.4 dBm, and a NF of 3.4 dB with only 2.5 mW power consumption from a 1-V supply.