An ultra-wideband 0.18 /spl mu/m SiGe BiCMOS LNA for 3.1 GHz to 10.6 GHz wireless receivers

Ultra wideband (UWB) radio emerges as a very promising wireless communication technology due to its many advantages: i.e., 7.5 GHz spectrum bandwidth, very high data rate, very low power consumption, etc. This paper presents a fully integrated 3.1-10.6 GHz low-noise amplifier (LNA) designed for UWB applications. The LNA uses shunt-series feedback topology architecture to achieve desirable ultra broadband gain and noise performance. The LNA is implemented in a commercial 0.18 /spl mu/m in SiGe BiCMOS process and the measured specifications are: an adequate ultra broadband gain of 17.4 dB-7.1 dB, a low noise figure (NF) of 3.2 dB-5.5 dB across 3.1-10.6 GHz bandwidth, a very low DC power consumption of less than 10 mW at 3V supply, S11 of less than -6 dB, and S22 of less than -5 dB.