A 6.4mW, 4.9nV/√Hz, 24dBm IIP3 VGA for a multi-standard (WLAN, UMTS, GSM, and Bluetooth) receiver

A low-power high-linearity variable-gain-amplifier, VGA, in a 0.13 mum CMOS technology to be embedded in a multi-standard receiver (WLAN, UMTS, GSM, and Bluetooth) is reported. This multi-standard receiver architecture presents considerable different VGA requirements (in terms of bandwidth, DC-gain, and common mode input voltage) for the four telecom standards to be processed. Thus the proposed VGA, in addition to the power control, is demanded to accommodate the different standards requirements and feed the one channel filter. The prototype VGA features gain levels from -10dB to 36dB, with a 25dBm IIP3 and an input-referred noise voltage lower than 5nV/radicHz at 0dB DC-gain. This gives a 85dB-DR for the WLAN case. The VGA draws 6.4mA from a single 2.5V supply