A Common-Gate, gm-boosting LNA Using Active Inductor-Based Input Matching for 3.1–10.6 GHz UWB Applications

Abstract

This paper presents the circuit of a low-noise amplifier (LNA) using active inductor (AI) input matching with common gate (CG) current-reused technique. This configuration is implemented in 90 nm CMOS and enables to achieve high power-gain (S 21 ) with ultra-wideband (UWB) input matching at low power levels. Utilization of modified high-Q AI at the input side of the proposed LNA reduces the number of inductors and achieves UWB from only two inductors. Proposed LNA dissipates 10.4 mW from 1.0 V supply and exhibits an S 21 response of 18.0 ± 0.8 dB for 3.1–10.6 GHz with a maximum and average S 21 of 18.8 dB and 18.22 dB, respectively. The proposed LNA has noise-figure (NF) equal to 3.36–4.68 dB, with input (S 11 ) and output (S 22 ) reflection coefficients of less than − 9.3 dB and − 11.35 dB, respectively across the entire UWB range.