Research On Silicon Based Millimeter Wave High Performance Broadband Low Noise Amplifier And Its Application

The advancement of modern information technology promotes the rapid development of society,and people continue to put forward new requirements for communication rates.Broadband millimeter-wave phased array systems that support multiple wireless communication standards are a research hotspot in the international academic and industrial circles.In the millimeter-wave phased array system,the low-noise amplifier is the first active module of the receiving chain.It is mainly used to reduce clutter interference,improve the sensitivity of the system,and at the same time amplify the RF signal to ensure the normal operation of the system.Therefore,the role of the low noise amplifier is very important.However,the performance of LNAs deteriorates dramatically as the operating bandwidth increases and the frequency rises to millimeter-wave,especially in silicon-based processes with high integration and high losses.Therefore,it is challenging to design mm-wave LNAs that combine broadband and high performance.Due to the large number of parasitic effects in the silicon-based process,after the traditional topology of the broadband low-noise amplifier is directly transplanted to the millimeter-wave frequency band,its performance such as gain,power consumption and noise figure cannot meet the requirements of the phased array system.In order to solve the above problems,this paper proposes a variety of new circuit topologies,and proposes some new methods and ideas in terms of gain improvement,power consumption reduction and noise figure improvement of silicon-based broadband millimeter-wave low-noise amplifiers.The effectiveness of these methods is verified by combining theoretical analysis and tape-out verification.In addition,according to the actual needs of the phased array system,a low-noise amplifier with linearly variable gain was designed and successfully applied to the 5G millimeter-wave phased array transceiver.The main contents of this paper can be summarized as follows:1.Broadband high-gain millimeter-wave low-noise amplifier based on loading effect and transconductance boosting technology.(1)A broadband input matching technology based on loading effect suitable for high-frequency millimeter-wave frequency band is proposed,which has a lower noise figure than the traditional common-gate LNA based on active feedback technology,and can be applied to the millimeter-wave frequency band.At the same time,it is theoretically proved that the input matching technology based on the load effect can achieve both noise and power matching;(2)The gain(equivalent transconductance)enhancement technology based on inductors and transformers is proposed,and the introduction of inductors/transformers greatly improves the transistor’s performance,which solves the problem of insufficient gain of the low-noise amplifier in the millimeter-wave frequency band and the trade-off between gain and power consumption;(3)Based on the above technology,a broadband high-gain millimeter-wave low-noise amplifier is proposed and implemented.The relevant research results was published in the journal Frontiers of Information Technology &Electronic Engineering in 2021.2.Broadband low-power millimeter-wave low-noise amplifier based on current-reuse technology.(1)A new type of dual-resonance input matching network is proposed.By introducing series inductance into the parallel-series transformer input matching circuit to form a dual-resonance characteristic,the input matching bandwidth can be greatly improved.At the same time,it also has the function of suppressing the gate noise of the transistor,which can improve the noise figure;(2)Propose a pole tuning technology based on the peaking of the series inductance and the peaking of the parallel inductance.By reasonably distributing the peak position of the gain response,the amplifier performance is greatly improved in gain bandwidth and gain flatness;(3)Propose forward body bias technology based on common source stage structure,which greatly reduces the threshold voltage of transistors;(4)By combining the above technology with current-reuse technology,a number of broadband and low-power mm-wave low-noise amplifiers are designed to achieve ultra-low power consumption while ensuring large bandwidth.These research results were published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques and the 2019 IEEE Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference(APMC)International Conference and the 2021 IEEE MTT-S International Wireless Symposium(IWS)International Conference in 2021.3.Broadband flat noise figure millimeter-wave low-noise amplifier based on new broadband noise matching technology.(1)A new broadband noise matching idea is proposed.Considering the characteristic that the noise figure of transistors increases with the increase of frequency,the limited bandwidth of noise matching is focused on the high frequency of the working bandwidth of the LNA,which is more efficient than the traditional noise matching method and can achieve a lower and flatter noise figure;(2)A transformer-based multi-stage noise matching technology is proposed.Compared with the traditional scheme that only performs noise matching at the input stage,this kind of noise matching between the multi-stage amplifier stages can greatly reduce the noise figure of the low-noise amplifier;(3)By combining the above two technologies,a broadband low-noise amplifier with low and flat noise figure is developed.These research results was published in the journal IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques and the 2020 IEEE Asia-Pacific Microwave Conference(APMC)international conference in 2021.4.Digitally controlled gain linearly variable low-noise amplifier and its application in phased array system.(1)In response to the major needs of the national key research and development plan,our research group proposed a "4+1" millimeter wave phased array transceiver,which uses RF phase shifting technology to simplify the system architecture,and integrates frequency sources and calibration channels,which greatly improves the integration level and reduces the chip cost.(2)According to the actual needs of the phased array system,a low-noise amplifier with linearly variable digital control gain based on the N-type currentsteering method is proposed.Different from the P-type current-steering method,the gain of Ntype current-steering method has a d B linear correspondence with the shunt gate width.Supplemented by numerical control circuit,the N-type current-steering method can realize high-precision control of gain(step of 1d B)with a convenient digital control method.Tape-out test shows that it is completely suitable for millimeter-wave phased array system.