An Improved Linearity High Gain Folded Cascode LNA for WLAN Applications

This paper presents folded cascode Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) designed for Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) applications. The proposed LNA uses complementary current reuse technique and diode connected forward body biasing technique to lower the power consumption and boost the transconductance for gain enhancement. Moreover, post linearization is done by P-MOS (Metal Oxide Semiconductor) Inter Modulation Distortion (IMD) sinker which reduces inter modulation distortion present at the input and achieves better linearity of the LNA. Under cadence virtuoso environment, using 180 nm Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology, the designed LNA exhibit high gain (S₂₁) of 25.4 dB followed by noise figure of 1.75 dB at a reduced supply voltage of 0.6 V. The other important parameters including reflection coefficient (S₁₁) − 12 dB, power dissipation (P_dc) 3.23 mW and Third order Input Intercept Point (IIP₃) − 4.43 dBm are also achieved. This demonstrates the applicability of proposed LNA for wireless applications functioning in 5.2 GHz.