Development of a power-efficient, high-gain, low-noise ultra-wideband 0.18-μm CMOS distributed amplifier

A distributed amplifier with new cascade inductively-coupled common-source gain-cell configuration is presented. Compared with other existing gain-cell configurations, the proposed cascade common-source gain cell provides much higher gain. The new distributed amplifier, fabricated in TSMC 0.18-mum CMOS process, achieves an average power gain of around 10 dB, input match of less than -20 dB, and noise figure of 3.3-6.1dB with an unprecedented power consumption of only 19.6 mW over the entire ultra-wideband (UWB) band of 3.1-10.6 GHz. In the high-gain operating mode that consumes 100 mW, the new CMOS distributed amplifier provides an unprecedented power gain of 16 dB with 3.2-6-dB noise figure over the UWB range.