A Miniaturized Monolithic 2.4/5.7 GHz Concurrent Dual-Band Low Noise Amplifier Using InGaP/GaAs HBT Technology

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1 A iaturized onolithic.4/ Concurrent Dual-Band Low oie Amlifier Ug InGaP/GaA HBT Technology KU-A LIAO and YO-SHEG LI, ember, IEEE Deartment of Electrical Engeerg ational Chi-an Univerity Univerity Rd. Puli, antou Hien, Taiwan REPUBLIC OF CHIA Abtract: - Thi aer reent the deign and exerimental reult of a miaturized monolithic.4/ concurrent dual-band low noie amlifier with cacade configuration ug InGaP/GaA HBT technology for the firt time. The firt tage of the LA rovide high ga and ut matchg imultaneouly at both.4 GHz and band. The outut matchg of the econd tage i realized by hunt-hunt feedback. It conume only 9 mw ower and achieve tranducer ga (S ) of 4.8 db and 5.7 db, ut return loe (S ) of -3.6 db and -.6 db, outut return loe (S ) of -5.3 db and -.5 db, revere iolation (S ) of -48. db and db, and noie figure of 3.4 db and.7 db at.4 GHz and, reectively. The LA only occuie an area of 65 µm 3 µm excludg the tet ad becaue only two ductor are ued. Key-Word: - Low oie Amlifier, Dual-band, Concurrent, InGaP/GaA HBT. Introduction Wirele communication ha evolved to a world of multi-tandard/multi-ervice with oeratg frequencie of 9 Hz/.8 GHz/.9 GHz band for GS,.5 GHz band for GPS and.4 GHz/5. GHz/ band for WLA. Therefore, it i deirable to combe two or more tandard one mobile unit []-[]. The rimary challenge deigng multi-band tranceiver i creag the functionality of uch communication ytem while mimizg the number of additional hardware uch a low noie amlifier (LA). Tyical deign trategie have ued different LA for different frequency band []-[5]. However, thi method evitably creae the cot and ower diiation. Recently, a.45/5.5 GHz concurrent dual-band COS LA with excellent erformance ha been reorted [5]. However, thi circuit, off-chi caacitor and ductor are ued. In addition, a.4/5./ trile band SiGe HBT LA achieved by witchg between different bae bia current (I B ) i reorted [6]. The diadvantage of thi circuit i it mall IIP 3. To realize low cot and low ower conumtion and to oerate at.4/ band imultaneouly, a gle LA uitable for.4/ dual-band oeration i needed. Therefore, thi aer, for the firt time, we reent the deign and imlementation of a.4/5.7 GHz concurrent dual-band LA ug InGaP/GaA HBT technology. RF L C C Vbb R b L Vcc Rc Q R f V cc Rc Q RF out Fig. The comlete circuit of the.4/ concurrent dual-band InGaP/GaA HBT LA. Circuit Deign To realize high tranducer ga and good revere iolation, a cacade configuration wa adoted for the.4/ concurrent dual-band InGaP/GaA HBT LA. The comlete circuit of the LA wa hown Fig.. The aroach troduced Ref. [5] wa adoted to achieve the ut imedance matchg and noie matchg of the LA. The wideband outut matchg of the LA wa realized by ug a hunt-hunt feedback architecture, which had the advantage of tabilizg ga and mimizg chi area (becaue no LC comonent wa ued the outut termal).. Inut Imedance and oie atchg In the firt tage, the ize and bia of the tranitor were choen aroriately to mimize

2 ower conumtion and to obta low noie figure by keeg the device current denity cloe to the mimum noie figure region. Beide, the ut imedance matchg wa achieved at the two band of teret. Thi can be exlaed by the mall ignal equivalent circuit model een at the ut ort a hown Fig.. The ut imedance i given by: R ( //L// L R rb R ) C ( CS C C ) where R //L // C L ( C C C ) S () i a hunt RLC network, ( R rb R ) i a erie RLC network. The real art of (5Ω) at the.4/ band maly come from. The untereted frequency (notch frequency f notch ) wa et a 3.5 GHz. At the notch frequency, the ut imedance i a maximum becaue of the bad ut imedance matchg (that i, large reflection coefficient). The imagary art of i ductive and caacitive for frequencie lower and higher than f notch, reectively, while the imagary art of i caacitive and ductive for frequencie lower and higher than f notch, reectively. By aroriately electg the value of L, C, C, and L, the imagary art of and are canceled at both.4 GHz and, and the ummation of the real art of and aroach 5 at both.4 and. Sce the mimization of the noie figure of the LA i very imortant, the matchg network wa deigned to achieve the mimum oval noie figure, but till to mata a reaonable ut imedance matchg at both of the frequencie of teret. In thi circuit, the um of the imedance of and were reduced to it mimum order to mimize the noie figure [5].. Outut atchg The outut matchg of the econd tage wa realized by a common hunt-hunt feedback technique [7]. Thi technique would tabilize ga but caue the degradation of noie figure becaue of the feedback reitor. Thi diadvantage wa not critical the econd tage a it contribution to overall noie figure wa reduced by the ower ga of the firt tage. In order to mimize chi area, the fewer ductor, the better. Therefore, reitor were ued a outut loadg lace of LC reonant circuit. Another advantage of ug reitive load wa wideband matchg. That i why thi LA wa caable of offerg high ga at both.4 GHz and 5.7 GHz. Furthermore, the ut and outut matchg were retty good. 3 Exerimential Reult An InGaP/GaA HBT IC roce with f t 4 GHz wa ued to fabricate the LA. The die hotograh of the fihed monolithic.4/ dual-band LA i hown Fig. 3. The layout wa done a uni-directional fahion to avoid ignal coulg between the ut and outut. The RF ut and outut termal were laced on ooite ide of the chi to imrove ort-to-ort iolation. The total chi area wa only 65 µm 3 µm excludg the tet ad. Thi LA draed 5 ma current at uly voltage of.8 V; that i to ay, it only conumed 9 mw ower. The noie and catterg arameter were meaured on wafer ug an automated P5 meaurement ytem from AT icrowave Inc. Thi LA achieved tranducer ga (S ) of 4.8 db and 5.7 db, and ut return loe (S ) of -3.6 db and -.6 db at.4 GHz and frequency band, reectively, a hown Fig. 4 and 5. A can be een Fig. 6, the meaured revere iolation (S ) for the LA wa quite good, i.e db and db, at.4 GHz and frequency band, reectively, and with le than -4 db of iolation for frequencie lower than 7 GHz. The meaured noie figure (F) wa 3.4 db and.7 db at.4 GHz and frequency band, reectively, a hown Fig. 8. Fally, two-tone-termodulation meaurement wa erformed and reult are hown Fig. 9. Clearly, an IIP 3 7 dbm wa obtaed. The erformance at of our.4/5.7 GHz concurrent dual-band InGaP/GaA LA (F of.7 db, and S of 5.7 db) were better than thoe (F of 4.5 db, and S of 5.5 db) of the.45/5.5 GHz concurrent dual-band COS LA at 5.5 GHz with a bondg wire a the gate ductor ug.35 µm COS technology [5]. Thi mean the erformance of our InGaP/GaA dual-band LA can be much better than that of it COS verion without the ue of bondg wire. 4 Concluion A low ower monolithic concurrent.4/5.7 GHz dual-band LA ug InGaP/GaA HBT technology i reented for the firt time. The total chi area i only 65 µm 3 µm excludg the tet ad. S of 4.8 db and 5.7 db, S of -3.6 db and -.6 db, S of -48. db and db, and F of

3 3.4 db and.7 db are achieved at.4/ band, reectively. The total ower conumtion i only 9 mw at.8 V ower uly. Comared to the recently ublihed GaA and SiGe HBT LA reult (ee Table ), the erformance of thi work i retty good and occuie the mallet chi area. 5 Acknowledgement The author are grateful for the meaurement uort from High Frequency eaurement Center of the DL. Reference: [] T. Ante and C. Conklg, RF chi et fit multimode cellular/pcs handet, icrowave RF, Dec. 996, [] S. Wu and B. Razavi, A 9-Hz/.8-GHz COS receiver for dual-band alication, IEEE J. Solid-State Circuit, vol.33, no., Dec. 998, [3] R. agoon, I. Koullia, L. Steigerwald, W. Domo,. Vakillian, E. gome,. Damgaard, K. Lewi, A. olnar, A trile-band 9/8/9 Hz low-ower image-reject front-end for GS, ISSCC Dig. of Tech. Paer, Feb., [4] K. L. Fong, Dual-band high-learity variable-ga low-noie amlifier for wirele alication, ISSCC Dig. of Tech. Paer, Feb. 999,.4-5. [5] H. Hahemi and A. Hajimiri, Concurrent dual-band COS low noie amlifier and receiver architecture, Sym. on VLSI Circ. Dig., Jun., [6] P. W. Lee, H. W. Chiu, T. L. Hieh, G. W. Huang, and S. S. Lu, A SiGe Low oie Amlifier for.4/5./ WLA Alication, IEEE International Solid-State Circuit Conference, 3. [7] C. D. Hull R. G. eyer, Prcile of wideband feedback amlifier deign, IT. J. High eed Electron., vol.3, no., ar. 99, [8] K. W. Kobayahi, et al., Ultra- Low DC Power GaA HBT S- and C-Band Low oie Amlifier for ortable Wirele Alication, IEEE Tran. TT, no., Dec. 995, [9]. Soyuer, J-O. Plouchart, H. Aan, and J. Burghartz, A 5.8 GHz -V low noie amlifier SiGe biolar technology, IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit Symoium, 997,.9-. L R C L R r b C µ RF C r v C v g m R L C L RF R L C C C C L R r R b " C µ C C ( g R ) g R ( g R ) R m L R L m L ( C C ) ω ( C C ) ( r R ) R R // L // C g R C m L L m L Cµ ( C C C ) L ( R r R ) b Fig. The mall ignal equivalent model een at the ut termal of the.4/ concurrent dual-band GaInP/GaA HBT LA.

4 Fig. 3 The die hotograh of the.4/ concurrent dual-band GaInP/GaA HBT LA. S (db) S (db) oie Figure (db) db 5.7 db.4 GHz Fig. 4 The meaured tranducer ga (S ) of the.4/5. GHz dual-band LA Fig. 6 The meaured revere iolation (S ) of the.4/5. GHz dual-band LA db - 48 db 3.4 db.4 GHz.7 db.4 GHz Fig. 8 The meaured noie figure (F) of the.4/5. GHz dual-band LA. S (db) Fig. 5 The imulated and meaured ut return lo (S ) of the.4/5. GHz dual-band LA. S (db) Outut Power (dbm) db -.5 db Simulation eaurement.4 GHz Fig. 7 The meaured outut return lo (S ) of the.4/5. GHz dual-band LA a ignal Power I Power -7 dbm Inut Power (dbm) Fig. 9 The meaured third order ter-modulation characteritic of the.4/5. GHz dual- band LA.

5 Table Comarion of the erformance of thi work and the recently ublihed GaA and SiGe HBT LA reult. Area (mm )