Design of a Source Degenerated Cascode Stage Low Noise Amplifier for 5G Applications

Abstract

Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) is the most critical part of a receiver front end in terms of the receiver performance. The performance tradeoff among input matching, noise figure, gain, and linearity are analyzed in detail. The LNA finds its application at Portable GPS Receiver, BLE, Zigbee, NFC, WiFi, Wireless Sensor Network, RFIC operating at 2.4GHz frequency. Millimeter wave communication is an evolving technology for bandwidth demanding 5G wireless application. A high gain and linear narrowband cascode Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) operating at 2.18GHz to 2.47GHz is proposed. To demonstrate design methodology, a narrow-band source degenerated cascode LNA is designed and simulated in a standard 90nm CMOS process to operate in the 2.4 GHZ band. The LNA achieves a voltage gain of 5.38dB, Noise figure of 4.1127dB, and from 3.2 V supply voltage. Proper input and output impedance matching have been performed to achieve the input return loss of -14 dB (S11) and output return loss of -19.72 dB (S22). Simulation study has been done using Cadence spectre.