A 4-mW temperature-stable 28 GHz LNA with resistive bias circuit for 5G applications

Abstract

This paper presents a low power two-stage single-end (SE) 28 GHz low-noise amplifier (LNA) in 90 nm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) CMOS technology for 5G applications. In this design, the influence of bias circuit is discussed. The 1200 Ω resistor which was adopted in bias circuit can feed DC voltage as well as keep whole circuit unconditionally stable. The gate bias points are set to 0.55 V to make the circuit low-power and temperature-stable. Measurement results illustrated that the LNA achieved a maximum small signal gain of 18.1 dB and an average 3.1 dB noise figure (NF) in operating frequency band. Measured S11 was below −10 dB between 25 GHz and 29 GHz and reverse isolation S12 was below −25 dB throughout the band. It consumed only 4 mW by proper selection of bias point with core area of 0.16 mm2 without pads. The fabricated LNA has demonstrated a gain variation of 3 dB and a NF variation of 1.9 dB from −40◦C to 125◦C with power variation of 0.8 mW. It suggests that the proposed SOI CMOS LNA can be a promising candidate for 5G applications.