Ultra-Low Noise Amplifier for X-Band SiGe BiCMOS Phased Array Applications

This brief presents, a low noise amplifier (LNA) with sub-1dB noise figure (NF) at X-Band. Different than generally known noise-and-power match technique, the presented LNA is designed by considering impedance between the base-collector terminals of an HBT in common-emitter configuration. The presented amplifier stage can achieve sub-1 dB NF performance with ~10 dB gain. The LNA dissipates 19.8 mW of dc power and has 0.77 dB NF while occupying 0.4 mm2. It succeeds 1.5 dBm of input-referred compression point. To the best of authors’ knowledge, the presented work achieves the best NF performance in the literature of any LNA that utilizes SiGe technology.