Reconfigurable Multiband MMIC Low Noise Amplifiers (LNAs) for Wireless Communications

Computers and mobile phones are used in many applications and technologies. In fact, the efficiency and the speed of these devices are limited by the bandwidth, the output power and the load of the network. High tech technology requires different frequency bands such as low frequency band (LF), medium frequency band (MF) and high frequency band (HF). Parallel systems have been used for achieving different standards and various frequency bands. This technology requires extra hardware. This leads to high cost and high power consumption. Reconfigurability is another approach that used for achieving different frequency bands with minimum cost and low power consumption. Low Noise Amplifiers (LNAs) should be able to support different frequency bands since it is one of the main components that used in the wireless transceiver. This type of LNA is called a reconfigurable multiband LNA. The purpose of this project is to investigate and design a reconfigurable multiband Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) low noise amplifier with maximum possible gain and low noise figure. This project has been divided into three phases. The first phase is based on designing two wideband LNAs that are capable to achieve two frequency bands. The lower frequency band is extended from (850MHz-1.2GHz) while the upper band is extended (1.0-1.4) GHz. These bands achieve noise figure about (0.27-0.43) dB and insertion loss (15.4-18.96) dB. The second phase of the project is designing a reconfigurable multiband LNA. In this design inductive degenerate common source (IDCS) topology has been used for input matching. Moreover, active switching topology has been used for frequency band selectivity. The reconfigurable multiband LNA is capable to achieve lower frequency band (800MHz-1.0GHz) and upper frequency band (1.0-1.4) GHz. These bands cover the Global Standard for Mobile (GSM) system. The simulation results show that the lower frequency band can achieve noise figure (0.331-0.474) dB and output gain 18.2dB .Moreover; the upper frequency band is capable to achieve output gain up to 18.8 dB and noise figure (0.235-0.358) dB. The power efficiency of the two frequency bands around 15%. The third phase of the project is the layout generation since it is important for EM simulation. In addition, extra developments have been presented for the wideband LNAs and the reconfigurable multiband LNA. The first development related to the novel reconfigurable multiband LNA and it is based on parameters tuning. In fact, after the parameters have been tuned the reconfigurable multiband LNA is capable to achieve different frequency bands (1.2-1.7) GHz and (1.4-2.4) GHz. The second development related to the two wideband LNAs. This development shows that the two wideband LNAs are capable to achieve reconfigurability by changing the Dc bias of the circuit. All in all, this project has been a total success in order to design and develop a reconfigurable multiband LNA that achieve the frequency bands (850MHz-1.2GHz) and (1.0-1.4) GHz.