A new linearity enhancing technique for ultra-wide dynamic range low noise amplifiers

This paper presents a new linearity enhancing technique for design of LNAs (Low Noise Amplifiers) which require high linearity and low power consumption for CDMA mobile station applications. In order to verify the feasibility of the proposed scheme over the conventional scheme, four different low noise amplifiers for 9000 MHz and 1.85 GHz applications have been designed, fabricated and measured using 0.5 μm BiCMOS technology. The measured results of both 900 MHz and 1.85 GHz LNAs show that the proposed scheme consumes less than 50% of power that is required with conventional scheme, while maintaining comparable gain and linearity. Specifically, a 900 MHz LNA has NF of 1.65 dB, transducer power gain (S₂₁) of 16.5 dB and IIP3 of +3 dBm including gain controllability with power consumption of only 21 mW (3 V) using maximum f_T of 15 GHz BiCMOS technology