A CMOS Noise-Squeezing Amplifier

Noise squeezing occurs through phase-sensitive gain implemented by a parametric process in a nonlinear LC resonator. This process enhances the sensitivity for one quadrature component of an input signal at the expense of degrading the sensitivity for the other quadrature. We demonstrate an 8.75-GHz parametric resonant amplifier in a 0.13-μm CMOS process, which provides gain of 21 dB and 12 dB for the two quadrature components. This 9-dB gain difference results in a 2.5-dB sensitivity improvement for one quadrature, while it degrades the other quadrature sensitivity by 6.4 dB. The amplifier bandwidth is around 800 MHz and draws 36 mA from a 1.2-V supply.