A 3.9-dB NF, 24.5-dB GAIN 0.3～10.5-GHZ DISTRIBUTED AMPLIFIER USING DUALINDUCTIVE-PEAKING CASCADE GAIN CELL FOR UWB SYSTEMS IN 0.18-μm CMOS

摘要

A high-gain and low-noise CMOS distributed amplifier (DA) is proposed. Flat and high S_(21) and flat and low NF was achieved simultaneously by using the proposed dual-inductive-peaking (LD and LP) cascade gain cell, which constituted a cascode-stage with a low-Q RLC load and two inductive-peaking common-source stages. At high-gain mode, the two-stage DA consumed 55.6 mW and achieved S_(21) of 24.5±1.5 dB and an average NF of 3.9 dB over the frequency range of 0.3～10.5 GHz, one of the best reported S_(21) and NF performances for a CMOS UWB DA in the literature. In addition, at low-gain mode, the two-stage DA consumed 16.3 mW and achieved flat and high S_(21) of 13.1 ± 1.5 dB with an average NF of 5.3 dB over the frequency range of 0.2～10.8 GHz. The results indicate the proposed DA is suitable for variable gain amplifier or low-noise amplifier in 3-10-GHz UWB communication systems.