A C-Band Current-Steering-Based Variable Gain Low Noise Amplifier with High Temperature Robustness

This paper introduces a C-band variable gain amplifier (VGA). The VGA demonstrates robust performance against gain control under temperature variations. To achieve this, this work modifies the switching signal generation circuit. The measured result indicates that the gain control range of the VGA ranges from 14.49 dB to 15.3 dB with a gain step RMS error of 0.25 dB to 0.57 dB at 5.7 GHz, over the temperature range of −40 °C to 110 °C. In addition, this work analyzes the circuit principle of the current steering with high robustness. This VGA achieves a minimum noise figure of 2.82 dB, an OIP3 of 19.5 dBm, an OP1dB of 8.6 dBm, and a power consumption of 122 mW, all within the range of 4.9 GHz to 6.5 GHz.

I. Introduction