Cascode Current Mirror for a Variable Gain Stage in a 1.8 GHz Low Noise Amplifier (LNA)

Lini Lee; Roslina Mohd Sidek; Sudhanshu Shekhar Jamuar; Sabira Khatun

doi:10.37936/ecti-eec.200861.171760

Authors

Lini Lee Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University Putra Malaysia (UPM)
Roslina Mohd Sidek Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University Putra Malaysia (UPM)
Sudhanshu Shekhar Jamuar Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University Putra Malaysia (UPM)
Sabira Khatun Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University Putra Malaysia (UPM)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37936/ecti-eec.200861.171760

Keywords:

cascode current mirror, low noise ampifier, noise figure, variable gain

Abstract

A high frequency CMOS variable gain low noise amplifier (VGLNA) constructed based on an inductive source degenerated LNA and a cascode current mirror is proposed. The 'variable' concept is to prevent the unwanted saturation phenomenon due to large input signal. A cascode current mirror cell which consumes minimal voltage headroom without sacrificing the accuracy of the circuit is proposed in the circuit. With a 0.18 m CMOS technology, this technique is applied on a VGLNA operating at 1.8 GHz for GSM band application. The simulation results reveal that the maximum gain is 17.29 dB with gain tuning range of 9.56 dB. The noise ¯gure (NF) is less than 0.92 dB with the power consumption of 9.34 mW at power supply of 1.8 V. Comparison with several same operating frequency LNA circuits published show that this work demonstrated among the lowest NF and highest IIP3 with compromise on the gain.

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