A Common-Gate, gm-boosting LNA Using Active Inductor-Based Input Matching for 3.1-10.6 GHz UWB Applications

This paper presents the circuit of a low-noise amplifier (LNA) using active inductor (AI) input matching with common gate (CG) current-reused technique. This configuration is implemented in 90 nm CMOS and enables to achieve high power-gain (S-21) with ultra-wideband (UWB) input matching at low power levels. Utilization of modified high-Q AI at the input side of the proposed LNA reduces the number of inductors and achieves UWB from only two inductors. Proposed LNA dissipates 10.4 mW from 1.0 V supply and exhibits an S-21 response of 18.0 +/- 0.8 dB for 3.1-10.6 GHz with a maximum and average S-21 of 18.8 dB and 18.22 dB, respectively. The proposed LNA has noise-figure (NF) equal to 3.36-4.68 dB, with input (S-11) and output (S-22) reflection coefficients of less than -9.3 dB and -11.35 dB, respectively across the entire UWB range.