Wideband Linear 28-nm CMOS Variable-Gain Amplifier
Abstract
A variable-gain amplifier (VGA) is an important building block in wireless transceivers and it
provides a constant receiver-output level for changing input power level due to varying inputs and
interference. In this thesis, a VGA is designed and fabricated in an ST-Microelectronics 28-nm
FDSOI CMOS technology for the next generation transceiver chips developed by PMC Sierra for
application use in micro base stations, which operate over multiple radio bands, multiple carriers,
and multi-antenna systems. The VGA is required to have wide bandwidth and high linearity to
prevent desensitization of the receiver due to the signals from adjacent bands. Since the most
challenging specification of the VGA is its linearity, different nonlinearity analysis methods along
with different linearization techniques are discussed. The gain of the proposed VGA varies from
4.5dB to 11.5dB with a step of 1dB and the 3-dB bandwidth is 4.1GHz. The circuit achieved a
maximum IIP3 of 26dBm for the high gain setting.
Description
Keywords
Engineering--Electronics and Electrical
Citation
Asgari, V. (2017). Wideband Linear 28-nm CMOS Variable-Gain Amplifier (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/28709