Noise Figure of a Balanced Amplifier

Noise figure expression of a balanced amplifier built with lossy divider and combiner and two imperfectly noise-matched component amplifiers is derived analytically using the method of noise waves in terms of the noise parameters of the amplifiers. We present analytical expressions for the three noise parameters of the balanced amplifier. We show that a low-noise amplifier optimized to be used as a stand-alone amplifier is not the optimum choice for the component amplifiers of a balanced amplifier. The derived expressions can be used to choose or optimize the component amplifiers.