A Differential Cascode Low Noise Amplifier Based on a Positive Feedback Gain Enhancement Technique

This paper presents a differential low noise amplifier (LNA) based on a new configuration suitable for low-power and low noise applications. By inserting additional positive feedback capacitor connected to drain and source terminal of the cascode transistor, this proposed configuration increases voltage gain because of decreasing the total transconductance by a factor generated a negative conductance. In addition, the differential structure and power-constrained simultaneous noise and input matching (PCSNIM) technique are chosen simultaneously to perform the input matching and to improve the noise figure at the desired band. Using TSMC 0.18μmRF CMOS process, the proposed LNA exhibit a state of the art performance consuming only 7.58 mW from a 1.8 V power supply. Input and output return loss of the LNA are below than −13dB while achieves a power gain of 18.66 dB and a noise figure of 2.03 dB at the band of interest.

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