A Low-voltage, Fully-integrated (1.5-6) GHz Low-Noise Amplifier in E-mode pHEMT Technology for Multiband, Multimode Applications

This paper describes the design and implementation of a fully-integrated MMIC low-voltage, low-noise amplifier (LNA) for use in multimode, multiband receivers using 0.25 um enhancement-mode GaAs pHEMT technology. The LNA has two cascaded gain stages and is fully usable down to 0.8 V supply voltage and 5 mA total current drain. Power supply inductors, bypass capacitor and interstage matching are integrated on the die. An external inductor can be added to improve input match and gain. At 1.4 V supply, it achieves broadband (1.5-6)GHz gain of 17.5 dB and typical noise figure of 1.5 dB while consuming 18 mA of total current. Gain variation is typically less than 1.5 dB. Input IP3 is better than -4 dBm across the band. The complete chip occupies an area of 1.1 mm².