Study of PM Noise and Noise Figure in Low Noise Amplifiers Working under Small and Large Signal Conditions

Author

Garmendia, N. ; Portilla, J.

Author_Institution

Basque Country Univ., Bilbao

fYear

2007

fDate

3-8 June 2007

Firstpage

2095

Lastpage

2098

Abstract

A study of the noise performance of low noise amplifiers (LNAs) working under different operating regimes is presented. The LNAs have been characterized through the measurement of phase modulation (PM) noise power spectral density as a function of carrier power level. The degradation of the amplifier noise figure (NF) due to input power is obtained from the residual PM white noise. Measurements show that the LNA NF can increase dramatically with the gain compression level. The growth of NF in nonlinear operating conditions can be explained due to the gain compression itself and the increasing level of the internal noise added by the amplifier. The flicker PM noise behavior introduced by the amplifier is also discussed.

Keywords

flicker noise; low noise amplifiers; phase modulation; phase noise; white noise; LNA; amplifier noise figure; flicker PM noise; gain compression; large signal conditions; low noise amplifier; nonlinear operating condition; phase modulation noise; power spectral density; small signal conditions; white noise; 1f noise; Density measurement; Low-noise amplifiers; Noise figure; Noise level; Noise measurement; Phase measurement; Phase modulation; Phase noise; Power measurement; Nonlinear noise; additive noise; low noise amplifier; noise figure; noise measurements; phase modulation noise;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Microwave Symposium, 2007. IEEE/MTT-S International

Conference_Location

Honolulu, HI

ISSN

0149-645X

Print_ISBN

1-4244-0688-9

Electronic_ISBN

0149-645X

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/MWSYM.2007.380300

Filename

4264282