Design of a 1GHz~4GHz ultra-wide band low noise

amplifier
Yanhui Lu1, Qinghua Tang1, Wenguang Li1*, Guoan Wu1, Huijie Qi2
1
Department of electronic science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
2
Radio, Film & TV Administration of Pingxiang, Pingxiang, Jiangxi
Email:*hellolwg@163.com

Abstract-This paper presents the design of a 1GHz~4GHz II. LNA CIRCUIT DESIGN
ultra-wide band (UWB) low noise amplifier (LNA) using the
Due to the design target, we choose a two-stage structure
Avago Technologies’ ATF-54143. The matching network uses
and Avago Technologies’ ATF-54143. ATF-54143 is a low
lossy matching made up of lumped elements and micro-strip.
noise enhancement mode PHEMT designed for use in low cost
Under the software design environment, the simulation results
commercial applications in the VHF through 6GHz frequency
show a high gain (S21>26dB), fine flatness (<1dB), good noise
range. It has high gain, high linearity and low noise
characteristics (NF<1.1) and fine input/output return loss
performance and so on, so that it can satisfy our requirement
(S11<-10dB, S22<-10dB) in the frequency range of the design.
perfectly.
Keywords-LNA, UWB, feedback, lossy matching, optimization A. Bias Network Design

I. INTRODUCTION
As the fast development of the high-speed wireless
communication, artificial satellite, vehicular and ground
penetrating radar technology, imaging systems, Ultra-wide
band technology becomes more and more important [1]. As the
basic requirement of the Ultra-wideband systems, the low
noise amplifier (LNA) plays a very important role in the whole
systems. For ensuring the performance of the whole system,
for example, the system sensitivity, the LNA must have high
gain, fine flatness, good noise characteristics and fine
input/output return loss.
The design of the UWB LNA has become one of the
biggest challenges due to the above requirement. Luckily,
large progress has made in the micro-electronics technology,
and thus lots of high performance LNA component can be
chose in design flow, what’s more, the EAD technology
significantly reduces costs and time of the design.
In the entire design of the LNA, a strong and stable bias
network to supply an appropriate quiescent operating point is
especially important, since the bias network will also affect the
noise figure (NF), stability, gain and so on. Based on the
circuit analysis, we choose the typical ATF-54143 passive bias
network supplied in the ATF-54143’s datasheet.
As shown in the Fig. 1, L1/C1 and L4/C4 are high pass
structures, which reduce low frequency gain and are beneficial
to the stability of the whole circuit. The voltage for the divider
is derived from the drain voltage which provides a form of
voltage feedback through the use of R3 to help keep drain
current constant.C3 and C6 provide the low frequency RF
bypass for resistors R3 and R4 to suppress the power supply
ripple.C2 and C5 provided a low impedance in-band RF
bypass for the matching networks.
The values of resistors R1, R2 and R3 are calculated with
the following equations

In the paper, we use the Avago Technologies’ ATF-54143

R 3 = (VDD − Vds ) / ( I ds + I BB ) (1)
to design a feedback structure UWB LNA, and show the
simulation results in the ADS2008.

978-1-4244-7941-2/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE


Figure 1. Bias network
R1 = Vgs / I BB
R 2 = (Vds − Vgs )R1/Vgs
VDD is the power supply voltage.
Vds is the device drain to source voltage.
Ids is the desired drain current.
IBB is the current flowing through the R1/R2 resistor
voltage divider network
We choose the typical quiescent operating point, Vds=3V,
Ids=60mA, Vgs=0.59V and the VDD=5v, and choose IBB to be
2mA. Use (1), (2) and (3), the values of R1, R2 and R3 are
calculated as follows
R1=295Ω
R2=1025Ω
R3=32.3Ω
B. Noise figure(NF) analysis
For low noise amplifier, the noise characteristic is what
needs the designer pays special attention to during the design
procedure. In a communication system, the LNA’s noise
characteristic determines the system’s signal to noise (SNR)
ratio and will be the bottle-neck of the data rata transmission.
For multistage LNA, the NF is calculated with the
following formulas
NF = NF1 + (NF2 − 1) / G1 + ( NF3 − 1) / G1G2 + ...... (4)
NF is the noise figure of the system.
NFn is the noise figure of the NO.n stage.
From (4), we can see that the noise performance of the first
stage determines the noise characteristics of the LNA, and the
effect of the second stage is reduced by the gain of the first
stage. Thus, the first stage should be ensured to have a low
noise figure and high gain to obtain good noise performance of
the LNA.
In 1928, H. Nyquist showed that the noise from any
impedance is determined by its resistive component [2]. In our
design, the inter-stage match network and output match
network are lossy matching, however if the input match
(2)
network also is lossy matching, the resistor will produce
thermal noise. So for the input match, we tried our best to
(3) simplify the structure, because of that the practical capacitor
and inductor are not ideal lossless element.
C. Feedback design
Negative feedback technology includes series negative
feedback which we used in our design and parallel negative
feedback. Though the negative feedback will reduce the gain,
it t can make broad band match achieve more easily, at the
same time improve flatness, improve stability.
Series negative feedback can be achieved by connecting
the source and the ground with series resistor or series inductor.
Since resistor will produce thermal noise, in our design, we
choose inductor to provide negative feedback. The value of the
inductor is relatively small, so we choose micro-strip to
replace the inductor. In practical, the inductor is a via, whose
value is determined by the radius of the via and the material of
the printed circuit board. We choose the Rogers 4350B
material with a dielectric constant of 3.66, and obtain the ideal
value by tuning the via’s radius.
D. Stability design
Oscillation is possible if the LNA is not stable, that will
result in the failure of the design. There are two type of
stability: unconditional stability and conditional stability. The
conditional stability means that it can only keep stable in a
certain range of passive source and load impedances, it is
potentially unstable [3]. To the contrary, the unconditional
stability ensures the network to be stable for all passive source
and load impedances. If it is possible, the designer should have attenuation at low frequencies, while maintaining a good input
a unconditional stability. and output match over the frequency range of the design [6].

In general, we judge whether the LNA is unconditionally III. OPTIMIZATION DESIGN

stable by K-△ test. It can be shown that the LNA will be
Microwave circuit design, always as a big challenge for the
unconditionally stable if the following necessary and sufficient
engineer to achieve perfectly performance without any
conditions are met:
optimization, is often called “the black art of electronics”.
Fortunately, the development of the EDA technology help
K = (1− | S11 |2 − | S 22 |2 + | Δ |2 ) / 2 | S21S21 |> 1 (5)
engineer a lot, many excellent EDA software are supplied to
and help the RF engineers to achieve their work, such as Agilent’s
ADS, Ansoft’s Ansoft designer and HFSS.
| Δ |=| S11S 22 − S12 S21 |< 1 (6)
We choose the Agilent’s ADS as the CAD tool of the
But the K-△ test can’t be used to compare the relative
design because the Avago Co. provides the ADS model for the
stability of two or more devices. In 1992, Marion Lee Edwards
device ATF-54143, and Murata Co. provides their capacitor’s
had derived a new criterion to determine unconditional
ADS model and inductor’s ADS model for the users.
stability:
Following the above circuit structure analysis, we ascertain
μ = (1− | S11 | ) / (| S22 − ΔS | + | S12 S11 |) > 1
2
11
*
(7) the structure of the LNA, and manually adjust the value of the
R, L, C and the micro-strip’s parameter try to meet the design
μ >1, the LNA is unconditional stability, and the larger
If
target. At the last, we use ADS2008 to analyze the input
value of μ , the greater stability of the LNA [4].
reflection coefficient (S11), the output reflection coefficients
There are many approaches to improve the stability of the (S22), the forward gain (S21), the flatness, the stability and the
LNA such as source negative feedback, using attenuation noise figure (NF), and setup the optimization goals to
network. In our design we use source negative feedback to S21>26dB, S11<-10dB, S11<-10dB, StabFact>1, NF<1.2 and
ensure the LNA to be unconditional stability. Flatness<1dB, then automatically optimize with the help of
ADS2008.
E. Matching network design
In the design of the ultra-wide band LNA, we must provide As shown in the Fig. 2, Fig. 3, Fig. 4 and Fig. 5, in the range
multioctave ampification, whereas the gain of the device falls of the design, the max value of NF is 1.0007, the max value of
off at approximately 6dB/octave. Lossy matching and the the input reflection coefficient (S11) is -10.140 dB, the max
negative feedback are the two common approaches to value of the output reflection coefficient(S22) is -10.234 dB,
overcome this problem. The lossy matching can provide lower the minimal value of the forward gain is 26.008 dB, the
input reflection coefficient (S11), smaller gain ripple, more flatness is 0.985 dB, and the minimal value of the StabFact is
predictable amplifier design, can contribute to amplifier 1.656. We can see from the figures, all the simulation results
stability factors that are superior to choose of lossless match meet the design target.
networks, can achieve the importance tradeoffs between gain,
reflection coefficient and bandwidth [5]. So we choose lossy
matching for the inter-stage match network and output match
network.

In our design, we use lumped series RL circuit and lumped

parallel RC circuit to achieve the lossy match network. This
structure of circuit can provide gain equalization by
introducing lower attenuation at high frequencies and higher Figure 2. Noise figure.

Figure 3. Input and output reflection coefficients.
Figure 4. Forword gain and flatness.
Figure 5. stability.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
Based on the Avago’s ATF-54143, this paper presents the
design of a 1GHz~4GHz ultra-wide band low noise amplifier
with the feedback technology and lossy matching technology.
By using the optimization function of the Agilent’s ADS, we
achieve the simulation of a UWB LNA which has high gain,
fine flatness, good noise characteristics and fine input/output
reflection coefficients.
REFERENCES
[1] H. L. Kao, K. C. Chang, “ Very low-power CMOS LNA for UWB
wireless receivers using current-reused topology,” Solid-State
Electronics, Vol. 52. Issue 1, pp.86-90, January 2008.
[2] Dale D. Henkes, “LNA design uses series feedback to achieve
simultaneous low input VSWR and low noise,” Applied Microwave
& Wireless, October 1998, pp. 26-32.
[3] Dacid M. Pozar, Microwave Engineering, Third Edition, John
Wiley&sons, Inc. New York, 1998, pp. 612-617
[4] M. L. Edwards and J. H. Sinksy, “A New Criteria for Linear 2-Port
Stability Using a Single Geometrically Derives Parameter” IEEE Trans.
Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. 40, no. 12, PP. 2803-2811,
December 1992.
[5] Andrei Grebennikov, RF and Microwave Power Amplifier Design,
McGraw-Hill, New York, 2005, pp. 315-339
[6] Bal S. Virdee, Avtar S. Virdee, Ben Y. Banyamin, Broadband
Microwave Amplifiers, Artech House, Boston, 2004, pp. 8-10