A CMOS low noise amplifier with RLC-impedance feedback for 3-5GHz ultra-wideband wireless system

A

CMOS Low

Noise

Amplifier with

RLC-Impedance

Feedback

for

3-5GHz

Ultra-Wideband Wireless

System

Zhe-Yang

Huang',

Che-Cheng

Huang2

'Dept.

ofCommunicationEngineering, National Chiao TungUniversity, Hsin-Chu, Taiwan 2Instrument

Technology

Research

Center, NARL, Hsin-Chu,

Taiwan

Abstract - In this paper a CMOS low-noise

amplifier (LNA)isdesignedfor ultra-wideband(UtWB) Band Band Band

wireless receiver radio system. Thedesignconsists of a #1 #2 #3

wideband input impedance matching network, a cascoded amplifier with shunt-peaked load, a

RLC-impedance feedback loop and an output buffer for measurement purpose. It is simulated in TSMC

0.18um standard RF CMOS process. The LNAgives 3432 3960 4488

13.65dB maximum power gain between 3.1GHz- MHz MHz MHz

5.0GHz while consuming 12.51mW through a 1.8V Fig.I(a) GroupAof

MB-OFDM

supply voltage. Over the 3.1GHz-5.0GHz frequency

band, the minimum noisefigure (NF)is 3.67dB.Input

L_

E ci

return loss lower than-10.1 dB in all bandwidth have beenachieved.

Index Terms RFIC, Ultra-Wideband, UWB,

Feedback,LNA,Low-NoiseAmplifier.

Fig.l(b) Low Band ofDS-UWB

I.INTRODUCTION

This

paper is focused on the design and

Since the approval of the ultra-wideband

implementation

of low noise

amplifier

for MB-(UWB) radio technology for low power wireless OFDM and DS-UWB radio systems. It is communication application in February, 2002, [1]

implemented

in a 0.18um Standard RF CMOS UWB systemshas become an increasingly popular Process.

technology which is capable oftransmitting data

over a wide spectrum offrequency with very low

power andhigh datarate.Although theIEEE UWB

standard (IEEE 802.15.3a [2]) has not been The proposed low-noise amplifier is shown in

completely defined, two major proposed solutions, Fig.2 which consists of wideband input impedance MB-OFDM and DS-UWB, are all allowed to matchingnetworks, a cascode amplifier with shunt-transmit in a band between 3.1GHz-4.9GHz and peaked load, a RLC-impedance feedback path and 3.1GHz-4.7GHz. The 1St generation device in an output buffer. The constituents of wideband commercial applications for ultra-wideband radio matchingnetworks are inductors Li, RF, LF, CF and systems which are shown in Fig.l(a) and Fig.l(b).

L5,

capacitor Ci and transistor Mi. First stage The band definition of MB-OFDM is illustrated in cascoded amplifier are transistors Mi and M2 with Fig.1 (a) which extended from 3168MHz to shunt-peaked load consists of inductor Lioadi,resistor

4752MHz and the band definition ofDS-UWB are Roadi, and the RLC-impedance feedback path from 3100MHzto4900MHz. The bandwidth of DS- including RF ,LFand CF. Acommon-drain amplifier UWB is in Fig.1 (b). The U-NII band located in M3 is a good choice of widebandoutput impedance

5.OGHz-6.OGHz and most popular specification in matching formeasurement purpose. this band is WLAN(IEEE802.1la).

600

1-4244-0797-4/07/$20.00

( 2007 IEEE

RF RL2 CF M3 RL M2 LF RS LI C2 MiI RFout Ci RFM'

LSVBIAI

R2

- VB3 I - Fig.4 Wideband Input Impedance Matching

Fig.2Proposed Low-NoiseAmplifierforUWBSystem Fig 5 Gain Compensated

The equivalent

impedance

ZL

and

YF are

stated in

equation

(1)

and

(2). According

to

the Miller's

Theory, the

impedance

ZF

of the feedback

loop

-could be

separated into

input impedance

Zi

and

-output

impedance

Z2

which is shown in

Fig.

3.

The

-:

wideband

input impedance

matching

networks

including

Li,

Ci

and

Zi

which determined

two center

frequencies in

input

return

loss that is shown in

Fig.

III.

POST-LAYOUT

SIMULATION RESULTS

4.

Furthermore, the loads of the cascoded

amplifier,

ZL

and

Z2,

also determined

two resonant

frequencies

The

post-layout simulation

results of the

in

power

gain. The

frequency

response

of the

proposed UWB

LNA

using

Agilent

ADS 2005A

amplifier

is

composed

of

two

main

power

gain

(blue

simulator are given

in

Figure 6 to Figure

10.

In

lines) which

are

shown in

Fig.5, and

finally

Figure 6 and Figure 7, the input/output return losses

combined into

a

wide bandwidth

power

gain

(red

(S

11/S22)

are lower than

-10.

OdB/-9.76dB

between

line).

3.1GHz

to

5.0GHz,

respectively. The power gain

whose

peak

value is 13.65dB

at

4.OGHz is shown in

Figure 8.

It covers

the Group-A of MB-OFDM and

Low-Band for DS-UWB.

In

Fig.

9, it

can

be

seen

ZL

R

+SL

(1)

that the noise

figure is below 4.05dB between

1

3.1GHz to

5.0GHz

and the minimum noise

figure

is

YF

= 1 (2)

3.67dB

at

3.7GHz.

The

power

consumption

is

RF

+

sLF

+

12.5

1mW

through

a

1.8V

power

supply.

In

Fig.

10,

SCF

the

input-referred

1dB

compression

point

(IP1dB)

is

-19dBm

at

4.5GHz

and the

11P3

is -5dBm with

ZF

3960MHz

and

3970MHz

which is in

Fig.

11.

V AV iz1 72 VI. CONCLUSION

A

CMOS

UWB

LNA

is

designed

for

dual-Fig.3 Miller's Theory mode, MB-OFDM and DS-UWB, radio systems.

The

post-layout

simulation results show that the

proposed

LNA

gives

13.65dB maximum

power

gain

between 3.1GHz

to

5.0GHz

while

consuming

12.51mW

though

a

1.8V

power

supply.

o--- ---d--dBS (1,1 -20--30 *U.. * 5 t 0 ,0 0 i 30

;

NFmin --40 3tt -0-20~ ~ ~50 60~ ~40 ~3070nf2~ ~ S Frequency

Fig.6Input Return Loss

Fig.9NoiseFigure

_5-- -M 2 --- ---40---lO-22 32 42 52 60 T: Input2PdBmrOut 14--1 .2- - 30der -14

--2423G 4G 5G 62 6 0 40 30 -1020 0

20 30 4050~~~~~Frqunc 60 70 Inpu Power(dBm

Frequency Irequency

Fig67IOuputReturn Loss Fg1 nu oe opeso d

40-Fig.8 PowerGain Fig.IIP3~~~~ordel l

20

2-n-iner

12 a U, 0 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~-*-IdBmne u -- - --6l --60--0 -4 -0 -430 -20 -20 -10

Frequency ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~InputPower(dBmn)

Fig7

8upu

PoetrGan Figli.OnutPoe 11mp3esonId

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors would like to thank the

chip

implementation

center

(CIC)

for technical

support.

REFERENCES

i 3i1 [1] FCC, 'Final Rule of the Federal Communications

Commission, 47 CFR Part 15,Sec. 503", Federal Register,

Vol.67,no.95,May2002.

[2]http/ww.ieee8O2.or / /u G3a.htrnl

[3]AndreaBevilacqua,and Ali M.Niknejad,"AnUltrawideband CMOS Low-Noise Amplifier for 3.1-10.6-GHz Wireless Receivers "IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS, Vol.39, No. 12,pp.2259-2268,Dec 2004.

[4]Chang-WanKim,Min-SukKang,Phan TuanAnh,Hoon-Tae

Kim,and Sang-Gug Lee,"An Ultra-Wideband CMOS Low

__>_ _

~~~~~~~~~

Noise Amplifier for 3-5-GHz UWB System", IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS, Vol. 40, No. Fig. 11 Layoutof the PurposedUWBLNA 2,pp.544-547,Feb. 2005.

[5] Chang, C.-P.; Chuang, H.-R., '0.18 um 3-6 GHz CMOS broadband LNA for UWB radio", Electronics Letters,

3.1-5.0GHz Volume41,Issue12,June 2005Page(s):33-34.

SII(dB) <-10.10 [6] Zhe-Yang Huang; Chun-Chieh Chen; Che-Cheng Huang;

S22(dB) -9.76 Nan-Ku Lu "Design of CMOS Low-Noise Amplifier for

| S22 (dB) | < -9.76 | Low-Band Ultra-Wideband System" MicrowaveConference

S21(dB) 12.60-13.65 Proceedings, 2005. APMC 2005.Asia-Pacific Conference

S21 Max.(dB) 13.65 Proceedings,Volume5,04-07 Dec.2005Page(s):1-4.

Working Bandwidth(GHz) 3.1-5.0 3dB Bandwidth (GHz) 2.5-6.0 NF(dB) 3.67-4.05 PIdB (dBm) -19 IIP3(dBm) -5 PowerConsumption(mW) j 12.51 Table. 1 Performance Conclusions

Paper CircuitTopology Technology 51I1(dB) S22(dB) SS21(dB) BW(GHz) Gmax(dB) NF(dB) NFmin(dB) Pdiss(mW)

[4] resistivefeedback 0.18umCMOS <-9 <-10 6.8-9.8 2.0-4.6 9.8 2.3-5.2 2.3 12.6

[5] 3-stagescomm.-source 0.18umCMOS <-12.2 <-10.1 13.5-15.8 3.0-6.0 15.7 4.7-6.7 4.7 59.4

[6] 2-stageshunt-peaked 0.18umCMOS <-9.5 <-8.1 15.3-18.0 3.1-5.0 18.03 2.7-3.1 2.7 25.9 This work 2-stagesshunt-peaked 0.18umCMOS <-8.7 <-9.3 111.2-13.1 2.8-6.3 13.1 3.7-5.0 3.7 12.5

Table.2 PerformanceComparisons