A 1.8-3.1 dB noise figure (3-10 GHz) SiGe HBT LNA for UWB applications

Author

Lu, Yuan ; Krithivasan, Ramkumar ; Kuo, Wei-Min Lance ; Cressler, John D.

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Georgia Inst. of Technol., Atlanta, GA

fYear

2006

fDate

11-13 June 2006

Abstract

We present the design and implementation of an ultra-wideband (UWB) silicon-germanium (SiGe) heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) low-noise amplifier (LNA) for use in UWB systems. The use of a shunt base-emitter capacitor and weak shunt resistive feedback in a cascode amplifier with inductive degeneration significantly improves the input bandwidth of the LNA, and allows very low noise figure to be achieved simultaneously. The LNA was fabricated in a commercially-available 0.18 mum 120 GHz SiGe HBT BiCMOS process technology. The circuit occupies an area of 0.72 mm², and exhibits a record noise figure (NF) of 1.8-3.1 dB across 3.0-10.0 GHz. This SiGe LNA is very broadband, covering the entire frequency range of 0.1 to 13.6 GHz, attains a maximum gain is 20.3 dB, and operates off a 3.3 V supply with a total power consumption of 26 mW

Keywords

BiCMOS integrated circuits; Ge-Si alloys; bipolar integrated circuits; capacitors; low noise amplifiers; microwave amplifiers; ultra wideband technology; 0.1 to 13.6 GHz; 0.18 micron; 1.8 to 3.1 dB; 120 GHz; 26 mW; 3.3 V; BiCMOS process technology; HBT low noise amplifier; SiGe; UWB applications; cascode amplifier; heterojunction bipolar transistor; inductive degeneration; shunt base-emitter capacitor; shunt resistive feedback; ultra-wideband amplifier; Bandwidth; BiCMOS integrated circuits; Capacitors; Feedback; Germanium silicon alloys; Heterojunction bipolar transistors; Low-noise amplifiers; Noise figure; Silicon germanium; Ultra wideband technology;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFIC) Symposium, 2006 IEEE

Conference_Location

San Francisco, CA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-9572-7

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/RFIC.2006.1651087

Filename

1651087