oa A concurrent tri-band low-noise amplifier for multiband communications and sensing

Concurrent multiband receivers receive and process multiple frequency bands simultaneously. They are thus capable of providing multitask or multifunction to meet consumer needs in modern wireless communications. Concurrent multiband receivers require at least some of their components to operate concurrently at different frequency bands which results in substantial reduction of cost and power dissipation. Fig. 1 shows a simplified concurrent multiband receiver, typically consisting of an off-chip antenna and on-chip low-noise amplifier (LNA) and mixer. While the mixer can be designed as a multiband or wideband component, the LNA should perform as a concurrent multiband device and hence requires proper input matching to the antenna, low noise figure (NF), high gain and high linearity to handle multiple input signals simultaneously. Therefore, the design of concurrent multiband LNA's is the most critical issue for implementation of fully integrated low-cost and low-power concurrent multi-band receivers. In this talk, we present a 13/24/35-GHz concurrent tri-band LNA implementing a novel tri-band load composed of two feedback notch filters. The tri-band load is composed of two passive LC notch filters with feedback. The tri-band LNA fabricated on a 0.18-μm SiGe BiCMOS process achieves power gain of 22.3/24.6/22.2 dB at 13.5/24.5/34.5 GHz, respectively. It has the best noise figure of 3.7/3.3/4.3 dB and IIP3 of -17.5/-18.5/-15.6 dBm in the 13.5/24.5/34.5 GHz pass-band, respectively. The tri-band LNA consumes 36 mW from a 1.8 V supply, and occupies 920 μm × 500 μm.