Low voltage low power SiGe BiCMOS X-band LNA design and its comparison study with IEEE 802.11a LNA design

This paper presents a low voltage low power X-band LNA integrated in 0.25 μm SiGe BiCMOS process and its comparison study with an IEEE 802.11a LNA design. The X-band and IEEE 802.11a operating frequency is 10 GHz and 5.8 GHz, respectively. The designed LNAs use the same architecture, supply voltage, and consume the same amount of current. Both require only a 1.5 V supply voltage and consume 1.5 mW DC power. The difference between the two circuits is that they contain different input and output matches and loads. At 10 GHz, the LNA has a voltage gain of 11.49 dB, noise figure (NF) of 3.84 dB, with input return loss of 15.37 dB, output return loss of -17 dB, and PldB of -3.75 dBm. At 5.8 GHz, the LNA has voltage gain of 16.07 dB, noise figure (NF) of 3,07 dB, with input return loss of -18.1 dB, output return loss of -15.23 dB, and PldB of -6.54 dBm. The key features of both circuits are low voltage, low power, and good noise match. At 10 GHz and 5.8 GHz, the difference between noise figure and minimum noise figure is only 0.03 dB and 0.05 dB, respectively. Demonstrating a low cost design for high frequency (X-band), it is designed in SiGe BiCMOS compared to other technologies such as GaAs, Si-BJT, JFET, PHMET, and MESFET.