Impact of LNA Performances on Mobile Base Station Receiver

This paper analyzed the impact of LNA performances on a modern receiver of a mobile base station. Recent mobile communication systems, such as a LTE system, employs MIMO techniques, carrier aggregation, mutli-band frequencies, etc. The transmitter on a mobile base station transmits broadband, high power, and multi-frequency signals. The receiver on the base station employs high performance frequency selective filters to avoid the interference from the transmitter. This paper investigated the relationship between the LNA performances, linearity and noise figure, and the receiver performances. The investigation also indicated the high linearity LNA enables to decrease the required filter performances on the receiver, resulting in low cost and compact base station. The above analysis and verification were performed by simulation and measurement with the fabricated GaN HEMT LNA.