DESIGN METHODOLOGY FOR NARROW-BAND LOW NOISE AMPLIFIER USING CMOS 0.18 μM TECHNOLOGY

(Received: 22-Nov.-2021, Revised: 6-Jan.-2022 and 19-Jan.-2022 , Accepted: 28-Jan.-2022)

Authors Raya O. Jaradat, Fadi R. Shahroury, Hani H. Ahmad, Ibrahim Abuishmais,

Keywords #Design methodology #Front-end receiver #LNA #Wireless network #Bluetooth #IEEE 802.11 b #IEEE 802.15.1 #0.18 μm CMOS

Abstract This paper presents a design methodology for a fully integrated narrow-band low noise amplifier (LNA). To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology, an LNA for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth standards at 2.4 GHz is conducted. The design circuity is implemented using 0.18 μm TSMC CMOS technology; however, the methodology can be equally applied to any process node. Optimum transistor sizing and biasing to achieve minimum noise figure (NF) and maximum power gain without violating the specified power budget are attained by this methodology. It also specifies the criteria for choosing the on-chip RF inductors based on the quality factor, self-resonance frequency and area. The demonstrated LNA design achieves a power gain (S21) of 22.75 dB, an input return loss (S11) of –30.11 dB, a reverse isolation (S12) of –60.49 dB and an output return loss (S22) of –11.23 dB. The linearity parameters of the P1-dB compression point and IIP3 are –19 dBm and –13.5 dBm, respectively. It produces an NF of 1.75 dB while consuming 6.16 mW from a 1.8 V power supply.

References

[1] C. Y. Wu and F. R. Shahroury, "A Low-voltage CMOS LNA Design Utilizing the Technique of Capacitive Feedback Matching Network," Proc. of the 13th IEEE International Conference on Electronics, Circuits and Systems, pp. 78-81, Nice, France, 2006.

[2] F. R. Shahroury and C. Y. Wu, "A 1-V RF-CMOS LNA Design Utilizing the Technique of Capacitive Feedback Matching Network," NTEGRATION, TheVLSI Journal, vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 83-88, 2009.

[3] F. R. Shahroury, "A 1.2-V Low-power Full-band Low-power UWB Transmitter with Integrated Quadrature Voltage-controlled Oscillator and RF Amplifier in 130nm CMOS Technology," Jordanian Journal of Computers and Information Technology (JJCIT), vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 165-178, 2016.

[4] S. B. Patil and R. D. Kanphade, "Differential Input Differential Output Low Power High Gain LNA for 2.4 GHz Applications Using TSMC 180nm CMOS RF Process," Proc. of the IEEE International Conference on Computing Communication Control and Automation, pp. 911-916, Pune, India, 2015.

[5] P. Bhalse and R. Khatri, "Design of CMOS Differential LNA at 2.4 GHz for RF Front End Receiver," Proc. of the 4th IEEE Int. Conf. for Convergence in Techno. (I2CT), pp. 1-6, Mangalore, India, 2018.

[6] A. R. A. Kumar, A. Dutta and B. D. Sahoo, "A Low-power Reconfigurable Narrow-band/Wide-band LNA for Cognitive Radio-wireless Sensor Network," IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 212 - 223, 2020.

[7] C. M. Chou and K. W. Cheng, "A Sub-2 dB Noise-figure 2.4 GHz LNA Employing Complementary Current Reuse and Transformer Coupling," Proc. of the IEEE International Symposium on Radio- frequency Integration Technology (RFIT), pp. 1-3, Taipei, Taiwan, 2016.

[8] N. Shrivastava and R. Khatri, "Design of a 2.4-GHz Differential Low Noise Amplifier Using 180 nm Technology," Proc. of the IEEE International Conference on Recent Innovations in Signal Processing and Embedded Systems (RISE), pp. 494-497, Bhopal, India, 2017.

[9] Aditi and M. Bansal, "A High Linearity and Moderate Gain LNA for Receiver Front-end Applications in 2.4GHz ISM Band," Proc. of the IEEE International Conference on Innovations in Control, Communication and Information Systems (ICICCI), pp. 1-5, Greater Noida, India, 2017.

[10] S. Sattar and T. Z. A. Zulkifli, "A 2.4/5.2-GHz Concurrent Dual-band CMOS Low Noise Amplifier," IEEE Access, vol. 5, pp. 21148 - 21156, 2017.

[11] Y. C. Wang, Z. Y. Huang and T. Jin, "A 2.35/2.4/2.45/2.55 GHz Low-Noise Amplifier Design Using Body Self-biasing Technique for ISM and LTE Band Application," IEEE Access, vol. 7, pp. 183761- 183769, 2019.

[12] M. Cimino, H. Lapuyade, Y. Deval, T. Taris and J. B. Begueret, "Design of a 0.9V 2.45GHz Self-testable and Reliability-enhanced CMOS LNA," IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits, vol. 43, no. 5, pp. 1187 - 1194, 2008.

[13] A. Taibi, A. Slimane, M. T. Belaroussi, S. A. Tedjini and M. Trabelsi, "Low Power and High Linear Reconfigurable CMOS LNA for Multi-standard Wireless Applications," Proc. of the 25th IEEE International Conference on Microelectronics (ICM), pp. 1-4, Beirut, Lebanon, 2013.

[14] H. Khosravi, A. Bijari, N. Kandalaft and J. Cabral, "A Low Power Concurrent Dual-band Low Noise Amplifier for WLAN Applications," Proc. of the IEEE 10th Annual Information Technology, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conf. (IEMCON), pp. 1118-1123, Vancouver, Canada, 2019.

[15] L. H. Lu, H. H. Hsieh and Y. S. Wang, "A Compact 2.4/5.2-GHz CMOS Dual-band Low-noise Amplifier," IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters, vol. 15, no. 10, pp. 685 - 687, 2005.

[16] B. Leung, VLSI for Wireless Communication, 2nd Edition, ISBN: 978-1-4614-0986-1, Boston, MA: Springer, 2011.

[17] G. Gonzalez, Micowave Transistor Amplifiers: Analysis and Design, 2nd Edition, ISBN-13: 978- 0132543354, New Jesresy: Prentice Hall, 1997.

[18] B. Razavi, RF Microelectronics, 2nd Edition, ISBN-13: 978-0137134731, Prentice Hall, 2012.

[19] P. Andreani and H. Sjoland, "Noise Optimization of an Inductively Degenerated CMOS Low Noise Amplifier," IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Analog and Digital Signal Processing, vol. 48, no. 9, pp. 835 - 841, 2001.

[20] P. Jespers, The gm/ID Methodology: A Sizing Tool for Low-voltage Analog CMOS Circuits, ISBN: 978- 0-387-47101-3, Springer Science & Business Media, 2009.

[21] T. K. Nguyen, C. H. Kim, G. J. Ihm, M. S. Yang and S. G. Lee, "CMOS Low-noise Amplifier Design Optimization Techniques," IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. 52, no. 5, pp. 1433 - 1442, 2004.

[22] Z. Li, Z. Wang, L. Chen, C. Wu and Z. Wang, "A 2.4 GHz Ultra-low-power Current-reuse CG-LNA with Active Gm-boosting Technique," IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters, vol. 24, no. 5, pp. 348 - 350, 2014.

[23] R. Ramzan, F. Zafar, S. Arshad and Q. Wahab, "Figure of Merit for Narrow-band, Wide-band and Multi- band LNAs," International Journal of Electronics, vol. 99, p. 1603–1610, 2012.