A V-band CMOS Elevated-Center CPW amplifier for high-speed radio-over-fiber systems

A V-band CMOS Elevated-Centre coplanar wave guide (EC-CPW) low-noise amplifier (LNA) for use in radio-over-fiber systems has been developed and tested. The amplifier design is based on the use of EC-CPW transmission lines which provides impedances higher than that of conventional CPW, without reducing the width of the signal line. The tested amplifier demonstrated a noise figure of less than 4.1 dB with a gain higher than 10 dB over a frequency range of 57-58 GHz, an input one-dB compression point of -14 dBm, while drawing a current of 11 mA from a 1.5 volt supply. The amplifier's chip area is 0.2 mm². The proposed amplifier has potential applications in millimeter-wave (mmW) radio-over-fiber (RoF) transceivers for high speed communication systems.