ULTRA-WIDEBAND LOW NOISE AMPLIFIER USING A CASCODE FEEDBACK TOPOLOGY

Jihak Jung, Taeyeoul Yun, and Jaehoon Choi Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Hanyang University 17 Haengdang-dong, Seongdong-gu Seoul, 133-791, Korea Received 6 December 2005 ABSTRACT: An ultra-wideband (UWB) low-noise amplier (LNA) that consists of two cascode and shunt feedback stages is presented. The measurement results show the maximum gain (S21) of 11.9 dB with the 3-dB band from 2 to 6.5 GHz and return losses (S11, S22) of less than 7.8 dB from 2 to 11 GHz. In addition, the fabricated LNA achieves the average noise gure (NF) of 4.5 dB from 2 to 10 GHz, which value is much lower than previously reported state-of-the-art UWB ampliers. The input-referred 3rd-order intercept point (IIP3) and the input-referred 1-dB compression point (P1dB) of the LNA are achieved as 4 and 5 dBm, respectively, while consuming 27 mW in the 0.18- m RF CMOS process. 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 48: 11021104, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www. interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.21611 Key words: cascode; CMOS; low-noise amplier; shunt feedback; ultra-wideband (UWB) 1. INTRODUCTION

Figure 1 Schematic of the proposed LNA

Recently, considerable interest in ultra-wideband (UWB) technology has centered on its potential applicability for short-range, high-speed wireless communications. In general, this technology has several advantages such as low complexity, low cost, low power consumption, and high data rate for wireless connectivity among devices within or entering the personal operating space. The UWB is thus a candidate of IEEE 802.15 Wireless Personal Area Network (PAN) for short range and high rate connectivity that complements other wireless technologies. According to the proposed multiband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) for IEEE 802.15.3a, the UWB system is assigned to operate over 3.15 GHz or 3.110.6 GHz [1]. The low frequency band from 3.1 to 5 GHz has been allocated for development of the rst generation of UWB systems. In this paper, a broadband CMOS LNA is proposed with a cascode feedback topology and broadband-matching techniques, which meets requirements of multiband OFDM UWB systems in noise and bandwidth simultaneously [2]. The design principles and the measurement results of the implemented UWB LNA are described.
2. CIRCUIT DESIGN

bandwidth. The large values of feedback resistors (700 1100 ) also improve the input impedance matching, without affecting the noise gure signicantly [2]. The rst stages transistor size and bias point should be optimized for low NF because both factors seriously affect the noise performance, and also the rst stage dominantly contributes to the total NF. In the approach used, the transistor size is chosen to obtain the least-noise gure at the desired drain current. The gate optimum widths of M 1 and M 2 and the gate bias voltage V g1 for the rst stage [6] are nally designed at 160 m and 0.8 V, respectively. The input impedance at the resonant frequency o is calculated from the following equations [3], assuming that the feedback effect is very small: Z in g mL s C gs
2 0

T s

L,

(1)

Lg

1 , L s C gs

(2)

where g m is the transconductance, C gs the gate-source capacitance, and T the unity-gain bandwidth, which are already decided by the transistor size and bias point. To attain a good input impedance matching, L s is appropriately chosen together with T from Eq. (1). L g is determined by the resonance condition of Eq. (2). Finally, Z in is close to R s , at 50 . The second stage should consider the linearity performance because the last stage is a prominent contributor to degrade the linearity [7]. For a cascaded amplier, the total input-referred 3rd-order intercept point (IIP 3,total ) is expressed as 1 IIP 3,total 1 IIP 3,1
2 1 2 1 2 1

As shown in Figure 1, the proposed CMOS LNA is composed of two stages, designed with Agilents Advanced Design System (ADS) based on Samsungs 0.18- m RF CMOS technology. The rst stage consists of cascoded MOSFETs, input matching networks, and a shunt feedback. The cascode topology has signicant properties such as high gain, broad bandwidth, and high reverse isolation [3]. The input matching network consisted of a source degeneration inductance L s and a gate inductance L g reduces signal reections between the input impedance Z in and the source resistance R s [4, 5]. In the proposed LNA, L s is achieved with a transmission line. The resistive and capacitive shunt feedback (R f , C f ) are employed to produce the better stability, gain atness, and

IIP 3,2

IIP 3,3

(3)

where 1 and 1 are the linear gains for the rst and second stages, respectively. Eq. (3) shows that the last stages IIP 3 signicantly affects the total IIP 3 . Thus, the device size and bias condition of the second stage are designed for the high gain and linearity improvement with restricted power consumption. The gate width of 80 and 160 m are chosen for M 3 and M 4 , respectively. The gate bias voltage V g2 of 0.85 V is chosen for M 3 . The tank circuits of L t and C t are also designed to yield a atter and broader bandwidth. R o and C t bypass networks with the L t C t tank are integrated with dc bias lines to ensure a better gain and

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Figure 2 Microphotograph of the fabricated LNA. [Color gure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at www.interscience.wiley. com]

Figure 4 Measured and simulated noise gure (NF)

stability at a low frequency. It also affects the broadband output matching. L c can improve the gain and NF of the amplier at a high frequency.
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The post-layout circuit simulation is performed using a Cadence SpectreRF to include parasitic effects of the actual devices in the CMOS process. When 1.8 V are supplied, a total dc-current consumption of the proposed LNA is only 15 mA. Due to a high sheet resistance of the poly gate of RF MOSFET, a multinger layout technology is adopted to reduce the noise from the gate resistance and to improve its RF performance. A microphotograph of the fabricated LNA is shown in Figure 2. Total chip size including pads is 0.8 1.1 mm. Figure 3 shows the measured S-parameter results. The measured S 11 of less than 7.8 dB and S 22 of less than 10 dB are obtained over 211 GHz. This proves effectiveness of the broadband matching realized by the matching networks, shunt feedback, and LC tanks. In addition, the fabricated LNA achieves the maximum S 21 of 11.9 dB with a 3-dB band from 2 to 6.5 GHz. The excellent isolation S 12 of less than 39 dB is obtained due to the cascode topology.

The measured and simulated NF is compared in Figure 4. The measured average NF has 4.5 dB over 210 GHz, with the minimum NF (NF min ) of 4.1 dB. Discrepancy between the measurement and simulation in NF is mainly caused by inaccuracy of the transistors noise model which will be improved. To observe the nonlinear behavior, two-tone signals with equal power levels at 4.0 and 4.01 GHz are applied to LNA. Figure 5 indicates that the LNA has IIP 3 of 4 dBm and P 1dB of 5 dBm. These results demonstrate that the proposed UWB LNA achieves enough linearity even with the low noise gure. Table 1 summarizes the measurement results and compares them with previously reported works [8 10]. The proposed CMOS LNA shows that the noise performance is superior to others, especially at a high frequency.
4. CONCLUSION

In this paper, an ultra-wideband (UWB) LNA with cascode feedback and broadband matching techniques has been presented. The circuit consisted of two stages, whereby design issues of noise and linearity were almost separated into each stage; the rst stage contributed to optimize the low noise performance and the second stage to improve the LNAs linearity. According to measurement results, the fabricated LNA has satised UWB system require-

Figure 3 Measured S-parameters (S 11 , S 22 , S 21 , and S 21 )

Figure 5 Measured input-referred 3rd-order intercept point (IIP 3 ) and 1-dB compression point (P 1dB)

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TABLE 1 Ref. [8] [9] [10] This work

Summary of LNA Performance and Comparison with Previously Published Designs BW3-dB [GHz] 24.6 36 25.9 26.5 NF [dB] 2.36 4.76.7 4.78.5 4.14.6 S 21 [dB] 9.8 15.9 16 11.9 S 11 [dB] 9 12 3 7.8 IIP 3 [dBm] 7 5 4 PDC [mW] 12.6 59.4 38 27 Tech. 0.18- m CMOS 0.18- m CMOS 0.13- m CMOS 0.18- m CMOS

ments with a low-noise gure in the interesting band. Thus the proposed LNA should be readily useful for UWB receiver systems.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was supported by University IT Research Center Project (INHA UWB-ITRC), Seoul, Korea.
REFERENCES 1. Multiband OFDM Physical Layer Proposal, IEEE P802.15 Working Group for wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs), http://grouper. ieee.org/groups/802/15/pub/2003/Jul03/03267r5p802_15_TG3aMulti-band-OFDM-CFP-Presentation.ppt. 2. F. Ali, C. Hutchinson, and A. Podell, A novel cascode feedback GaAs MMIC LNA with transformer-coupled output using multiple fabrication process, IEEE Microwave Guided Wave Lett 2 (1992), 70 72. 3. D.K. Shaeffer and T.H. Lee, A 1.5-V, 1.5-GHz CMOS low-noise amplier, IEEE J Solid-State Circ 32 (1997), 745759. 4. T.K.K. Tsang and M.N. El-Gamal, A fully integrated 1-V, 5.8-GHz bipolar LNA, IEEE Int Symp Circ Syst Dig 4 (2001), 842 845. 5. K. Yu, Y. Lu, D. Huang, D. Chang, V. Liang, and M. Chang, 24-GHz low-noise amplier in 0.18- m CMOS technology, Electron Lett 39 (2003), 1599 1560. 6. T.H. Lee, The design of CMOS radio-frequency integrated circuits, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K., 1998. 7. B. Razavi, RF microelectronics, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1998. 8. C.W. Kim, M.S. Kang, P.T. Anh, H.T. Kim, and S.G. Lee, An ultrawideband CMOS low-noise amplier for 35 GHz UWB system, IEEE J Solid-State Circ 40 (2005), 544 547. 9. C.P. Chang and H.R. Chuang, 0.18- m 3 6-GHz CMOS broadband LNA for UWB radio, Electron Lett 41 (2005), 696 698. 10. R. Gharpurey, A broadband low-noise front-end amplier for ultrawideband in 0.13- m CMOS, IEEE J Solid-State Circ 40 (2005), 19831986. 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

COUPLING AND POWER DISSIPATION IN A COAXIALLY EXCITED TM01l MODE CYLINDRICAL APPLICATOR WITH A SPHERICAL LOAD
Vyacheslav V. Komarov1 and Vadim V. Yakovlev2 1 Department of Radio Engineering Saratov State Technical University Polytekhnicheskaya St. 77 Saratov 410054, Russia 2 Department of Mathematical Sciences Worcester Polytechnic Institute 100 Institute Road Worcester, MA 01609 Received 16 November 2005 ABSTRACT: This paper presents the results of 3D FDTD modeling of a 915-MHz cylindrical structure with the TM01l mode excited by a coaxial line and intended for thermal processing of a spherical load (a fruit). Energy coupling is shown to be insensitive to the fruits type and temperature, but dependent on its size and location and the loops radius. The patterns of dissipated power are analyzed from the viewpoint of heating uniformity. 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 48: 1104 1108, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/mop.21612 Key words: coaxial excitation; coupling; cylindrical cavity; FDTD model; spherical load; TM01l mode INTRODUCTION

Cylindrical single-mode applicators employing the TM01l mode [1] nd practical use in microwave power engineering for thermal treatment of optical bers [2], liquid media [3], food stuffs [4], and other substances of axially symmetric geometry. Although underlying theoretical aspects of wave propagation in circular axially loaded waveguides have been described in literature (for example, [3 6]), full-wave numerical analysis is essential for competent design of practical devices [7]. Known examples of CAD of cylindrical TM01l applicators include the models developed in order to evaluate the occurrence of higher modes emerging in case of high dielectric constant of the load [4], to take into account the presence of other system elements (dielectric molds, metal irises, etc.) [8], to calculate resonant characteristics of the applicator with the inner stubs [9], and to address some other specic issues. One of the most critical problems of the applicator design is its efcient excitation. While the TM01l mode can be excited in a cylindrical structure in different ways, corresponding computer models have been reported only for a waveguide aperture excitation in multifeed applicators [4, 10]. A coaxial line ended in a probe or a loop, a standard coupling element, has been also used in practical applicators (for example, [1, 3, 9]), but this has been

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