A 6 GHz 0.92 dB NF Cascode LNA in 180 nm SOI CMOS Technology

A 6 GHz CMOS low-noise amplifier (LNA) with very low noise-figure (NF) of 0.92 dB is reported in this paper. An inductively degenerated cascode topology is used for the LNA. The common source device is a floating body transistor for higher unity gain cut-off frequency and lower NFmin while the common gate device is a body contacted device with higher self gain. High resistivity (HR) silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology renders higher quality factor (Q) values for inductors which results in reduced NF. The prototype LNA is fabricated (Fig. 1) and characterized using a 180 nm RF-SOI CMOS technology. Measurements show 15.9 dB of gain, 0.92 dB of NF, -1.1 dBm of input third-order intercept point (IIP3) for the LNA, with 12 mW dc power consumption.