Structured LNA Design for Next Generation Mobile Communication

Abstract

Ever increasing demands of higher data rates in wireless communication domain lead to deployment of higher frequency bands for wireless transceivers. This thesis work has focused on the LNA design for radio base station receiver front end for next generation mobile communication LTE standard, within frequency band of 3.4-3.8 GHz using NXP semiconductors 0.25 µm SiGe:C BiCMOS technology having of 180/200 GHz. To fulfill the required set of LNA performance goals feedback cascode configuration has been utilized. Four variants of LNA using different combinations of LV-HV NPN transistors were designed, simulated and taped out using cadence virtuoso ADE tool. The two main variants, single stage LNAs having bandwidth of 200MHz each with design frequencies of 3.5 GHz and 3.7 GHz respectively were fabricated and measured. The LNAs exhibit noise figure of under 1 dB, input/output match of better than -20/-6 dB, gain of better than 17 dB, input referred P1dB compression point of -10 dBm and input third order intercept point (IIP3) of around 0.015 dBm with 75 mw power consumption. The good agreement between simulated and measured results proved the viability of the design for next generation mobile communication LTE standard.