Design of High Gain, High Reverse Isolation and High Input Matched Narrowband LNA for GPS L1 Band Applications Using 0.18µm Technology

Design of Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver with a low noise amplifier (LNA) in the front end remains a major design requirement for the success of modern day navigation and communication system. Any LNA is expected to meet the requirements like its ability to add the least amount of noise while providing sufficient gain, perfect input and output matching, and high linearity. However, most of the reported designs of LNAs present the need for striking a trade-off between these design parameters in order to obtain the desired performance for a particular RF receiver. This paper presents high gain (21dB), high input matched (-29dB), high reverse isolation (-41dB) and low noise figure (< 2dB) narrowband LNA for extremely low power level GPS L1 band signals broadcasting at 1.57GHz with a channel bandwidth of 10MHz. Inductive source degeneration topology is employed for the design and all the matching inductors in the circuit are used with fixed quality factor (Q) to model the losses for better tuning and matching. The design is carried out on Cadence Virtuoso Tool version IC6.1.6 and Spectre version MMSIM13.1 at 0.18µm technology node using a generic process development kit. Detailed mathematical analysis of the design is done and all the DC parameters like values of transconductance, gate source capacitance, drain source voltage, drain current, etc. are reported. Graphical analysis using Smith chart is carried out to present the results and to bring forth the trade-offs involved in the design. LNA draws 5mA current from 1.2V supply voltage and offers good linearity that is sufficient for GPS application and is measured by input intercept point 3 (IIP3 < ‑4dBm).