Design of ultra-wideband Sziklai pair based LNAs for wireless communication applications

Abstract

Noise figure (NF) and linearity at higher frequencies are challenging tasks in Low Noise Amplifiers (LNAs) design. The existing LNAs impose limits on these parameters resulting in enhanced NF. In this paper, two ultra-wide band (UWB) small signal Sziklai pair based LNAs are proposed with improved linearity and minimum NF for high frequency wireless communication. Theses LNAs use NMOS Sziklai and PMOS Sziklai pairs as amplifying components with bandwidth boosting arrangement in common source mode. The simulation results indicate that NMOS LNA exhibits bandwidth of 580.554 GHz with noise figure of 1.66 dB at 63.09 GHz, whereas PMOS LNA shows bandwidth of 299.956 GHz, with noise figure of 11.71 dB at 283.09 GHz, at 180 nm CMOS technology. Furthermore, NMOS and PMOS LNAs show high linearity with input 1 dB compression point (P1dB) of 0.883 dBm and 0.822 dBm while input third order intercept point (IIP3) are 10.22 dBm and 6.72 dBm respectively. Compared to CMOS LNA, bulk CMOS LNA, GaAs pHEMT LNA, and SiGe BiCMOS LNA, the proposed LNAs significantly improve power gain, bandwidth, noise figure, linearity, and area. To further expand the bandwidth, three stage broadband distributed amplifiers (DAs) are also configured using the designed LNAs which measures the bandwidth of 0–7.5 GHz and 10,000–800,000 THz. The performance of these LNAs is verified through designing D-band microwave tuneable second order band reject filter (BRF) which exhibits ultra-wide band (UWB) of 110.362 GHz, notch depth of 10.3 GHz while consuming DC power of 68.32 pW at a supply voltage of ± 3 V.