NOISE FIGURE IMPROVEMENT BY CONTROLLING WIRING EFFECTS IN RF LOW NOISE AMPLIFIERS

In this letter, we evaluate the noise figure ( NF) improvement that results from controlling the parasitic gate resistance of a radio- frequency (RF) low noise amplifier (LNA). By optimizing the number of gate contacts and wiring modifications in our fabricated device, the customized layout exhibited an approximately 25% reduction in the gate electrode resistance (R-elect) when compared to a reference device provided by the foundry. The fabricated LNA, which used a customized layout in a 0.18 mu m standard CMOS process, improved the NF by almost 6% without affecting the Si area and DC power consumption, and exhibited a NF of 2.57 dB, gain of 11.6 dB, DC power dissipation of 4.0 mW, and return loss at both the input and output of more than 10 dB. (C) 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.