Advances in Analog and RF IC Design for Wireless Communication Systems

Chapter 3

Low-Noise Amplifiers for Cellular Wireless Infrastructure

Domine Leenaerts,    NXP Semiconductors, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

Introduction

In the mid-1990s research groups at various academic institutions started exploring CMOS technology to realize low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) operating at radio frequencies (RF). The preferred technology up to that moment to design in was a bipolar/BiCMOS process in order to get low-noise and high-linearity performance at RF. Almost two decades later, most commercial handheld terminals for mobile communication are based on a CMOS system-on-chip (SoC) approach, which includes the radio and at least parts of the baseband of the complete system functionality. This SoC includes typically more than one ...