Low Voltage Cascode Current Mirror in a 1.8 GHz Variable Gain Low Noise Amplifier (VGLNA)

A high frequency CMOS variable gain low noise amplifier (VGLNA) employing a low voltage cascode current mirror cell is proposed. The 'variable' concept is to prevent the unwanted saturation phenomenon due to large input signal. A design technique based on the proposed low voltage cascode cell consumes minimal voltage headroom without sacrificing the accuracy of the circuit. With a 0.18 mum CMOS technology, this technique is applied to design a 1.8 V VGLNA operating at 1.8 GHz for GSM band application. The simulation results reveal that the maximum gain is 15.18 dB with gain tuning range of 4.6 dB and noise figure is less than 1.9 dB with the power consumption of 74 mW