The Design and Simulation of LNA with the

Frequency of 2.4GHz
Yongguang Lu Shu-hui YangYinchao Chen
College of Photoelectric Information and Communication Engineering
Beijing Information &Technology University
Beijing, China
Abstract In order to accelerate the design and production of RF
amplifier, an effective method is used to simulate and design the
amplifier firstly with EDA tool software. The functions and key
performance indicators of the low-noise amplifier are described
in this paper. We design a low-noise amplifier and simulate its
various parameters such as stability factor, noise figure, gain,
input and output VSWR, and we obtain the simulation results
and the final design of the circuit. The simulation results show
that the design of LNA meet the requirements.
Keywords- Low-noise amplifier; Simulation; ADS; RF

I.

INTRODUCTION

In wireless communication systems, we generally place a

low-noise amplifier on the front end of the receiver to improve
the gain and reduce the noise figure. With the rapid
development of communication technology, peoples
requirements of the wireless communication tools have become
more sophisticated, small power of radiation, the role of
distance, large converging area have become the common
pursuits of wireless communication equipment operators and
manufacturers, so the requirement of receiver sensitivity is very
high[1]. In a variety of specific(bandwidth, input signal-noise
ratio have been set) and wireless communication systems, the
key factors which can effectively improve the sensitivity is to
reduce the receiver noise figure, and the key component which
can affects the receiver noise figure is low-noise amplifier in
the forefront of the receiver. The primary role of low-noise
amplifier is to amplify the weak signals obtained by antenna
from the air and reduce noise, so the design of low-noise
amplifier is crucial to the receiver.
II.

For the single-stage amplifier, its noise figure is seen as

follows:

F = Fmin +

A.

Noise figure
Noise figure is defined as the ratio of input signal and
output signal:

NF =

SNRin
SNRout

(1)

(1 s ) 1 + opt

(2)

In the formula, Fmin is the minimum noise figure which is

decided by the transistor itself, opt, rn and s are the best
source reflection coefficient, the equivalent noise resistance of
the transistor and the input reflection coefficient of the
transistor when Fmin is obtained.
For the multi-stage amplifier, its noise figure is decided by
the following formula:

NF = F1 +

F2 1 F3 1
+
+ ......
G A1
G A1G A 2

(3)

Here, NFn is the noise figure of the first n-amplifier and Gn

is the gain of the first n-amplifier.
In some systems whose require of noise figure is very high,
noise temperature is very convenient and often used to
represent instead of noise figure because the noise figure is
very small and inconvenient[4]. The conversion relation
between temperature and noise figure is given by the following
formula:

Te = T0 ( NF 1)

INDICATORS OF LOW-NOISE AMPLIFIER

The main indicators of low-noise amplifier include noise

figure, amplification gain, input and output standing wave ratio,
reflection coefficient and dynamic range[2], following we
describe them respectively.

4rn s opt

Here,

(4)

Te is the noise temperature of the amplifier, 0

=2900K, NF is the noise figure of the amplifier.

B. The gain of amplifier
Amplifiers gain is defined as the ratio of input power and
output power:

G=

978-1-4244-3709-2/10/$25.00 2010 IEEE

Pout
Pin

(5)

As can be seen from the equation, to improve the noise

gain of the amplifier is very favorable to reduce the whole
machines noise figure, but it may affect the whole dynamic
range of the receiver if the low-noise amplifiers gain is too
high. Therefore, in general, low-noise amplifiers gain should
be considered with the noise figure of whole machine,
dynamic range of the receiver etc.
C. Input and output VSWR
Low-noise amplifiers input and output VSWR represent
its conditions of input and output matching circuit [3]. The
input matching network is generally designed to obtain
minimum noise and to approximate the optimum noise
matching network not the best power matching network, while
the output matching network is generally designed in order to
obtain maximum power and minimum VSWR. Therefore,
there is always some kind of mismatch in the input of lownoise amplifier. In some cases, this mismatch may cause
systems instability. In general, in order to reduce the impact
of reflection caused by the amplifiers input mismatch, we can
insert a isolator whose insertion loss is very small.
D. Reflectance coefficient
We can see that from the formula (3) power amplifier will
obtain the minimum noise figure when s =opt, that is to
say: NF=NFmin. However, from the perspective of power
transmission this time, the input port is mismatch, so the gain
of power amplifier will get smaller. But sometimes in order to
obtain minimum noise, we sacrifice some gain when we
design low-noise amplifier.
E. Dynamic range
In the design of low-noise amplifier, we should take full
account of dynamic range of the whole receiver in order to
avoid a serious nonlinear distortion. Generally the low-noise
amplifiers third order intercept point should be a little higher,
at least 30dB more than the maximum input signal so as to
avoid the nonlinear distortion when large signal is being input.
In addition, low-noise amplifiers operating frequency;
bandwidth and gain flatness within the pass-band is also
factors that are needed to be carefully considered in the design
process.
III.

Microwave low-noise tube should have sufficiently high

gain and dynamic range. Generally, the gain of amplifier must
be greater than 10dB and the inter-modulation component
caused by non-linear amplifier when the systems input signal
reach maximum.
B. The design principles of input and output matching
circuits
For the noise figure of a single-stage transistor amplifier,
such as the formula (3), it can be expressed by a circle which is
the noise figure circle. Every point on the circle represents a
constant noise figure which can produce the source reflection
coefficient. To get the required noise figure, we can draw a
circle correspond the noise figure in the circle graph and then
make source impedance match to a point. In the actual design
process, we usually take the gain of amplifier into account but
no minimum noise figure. In the individual design of the
amplifier(assuming S12=0), for a particular transistor, its S11
and S22 are certain, so different source reflection coefficient 1
and the load reflection coefficient2 can constitute a constantgain circle[5]. We can obtain the coefficient gain by matching
the source reflection coefficient and the load reflection
coefficient to the corresponding circle. We can get ideal results
if we put constant-gain circle and equivalent noise figure
together.
IV.

CIRCUIT DESIGN

We design a amplifier with the following indicators: the

frequency is 2.2-2.6GHZ, the gain is 110.3dB, noise figure is
2.6dB and the VSWR of input and output signal are no more
than 1.4dB. According to the requirements, we choose the
sp_hp_AT-41511_8_19921201 in device library of Agilent and
its working condition is that: Vce=8V, Ic=25mA, Frequency:
0.1-6.0GHZ.
Firstly, we make the simulation of s-parameter to the
transistor. In Figure 1, we can see three parts: Zin1, SPARAMETERS and the circuit of SP models. The frequency
of simulation is from 2.2GHZ to 2.6GHZ and its step is
0.02GHZ. Zin1 can control the input match of the circuit.

THE DESIGN PRINCIPLES

During the design process of low-noise amplifier, we

must note that:
A. The option of zoom tube
Generally speaking, we usually consider the following two
aspects when we select low-noise amplifiers tube:
Noise figure of microwave low-noise tube is small enough
and its working frequency is high enough. Generally the
frequency of tube is four times higher than its working
frequency. In the frequency of 2GHZ, the noise figure of
PHEMT FET is 0.5dB and its high-end working frequency can
be achieved 6GHZ.

Figure 1. The transistors simulation of s-parameters

From the simulation, we can obtain the transistors input

match as in TABLE I .
TABLE I INPUT MATCH OF THE TRANSISTOR

but for the output-port, reflectance is not very small and output
impedance is not as same as load impedance. So we should
design output match according to the input conditions. By
using the optimization tool of ADS, we can easily obtain the
responding output circuit. Input and output match circuit
design is a difficult work in the design of amplifier, but we can
easily design the circuit we require by using ADS, so it can
save much time for us. The whole circuit based on SP model is
can be seen as Figure 3.

So we can see that the input match is 23.108+j*11.231

when the frequency is 2.4GHZ, according this result, we design
the input circuit and insert it to the SP models.
After inserting the input match circuit, we do the simulation
of S11and S22, and we obtain result as Figure 2.
From Figure 2, we can see that for the input-port,
reflectance is very small and the input impedance is about 50;

Figure 2. Smith chart of S11 and S22 after inserting the input match circuit

Figure 3. The SP model circuit

In Figure 3, there are four micro strip, two terms which are
both 50 and input circuit in the design, then we use the
SSMATCH to design the input circuit and we use the micro
stripe line to build output circuit, and its indexes include:
H=0.8mm, Er=4.3, Mur=1.Here, H is micro strip lines base
board thickness, Er is relative dielectric constant and Mur is
relative permeability.

In the process of input circuit design, we use the Design

Guide>Passive Circuit in ADS, and the input circuit is seen as
in Figure 4.

B. Noise figure.

Figure 4. Input match circuit

V.

THE SIMULATION RESULTS AND ANALISICS

We make the simulation of S-parameters to the whole

circuits; we can obtain the following index of the amplifier:
A. Stability factor

Figure 6. Noise figure of the amplifier

As we can see in the Figure 6, in the frequency of 2.4GHZ,

the noise figure is 2.654 dB and is according with our
requirements.
C. Gain

Figure 5. Stability factor of the amplifier

The stability is an important factor of amplifier, if it get

very small (below 0.9), the amplifier will be unstable and hard
to achieve the expect performance.
From Figure5, we can see that from the frequency of
2.2GHZ-2.6GHZ, the stability factor of amplifier is bigger than
1, and in the frequency of 2.4GHZ, the stability factor is about
1.282, so the amplifier we design is stable.
Figure 7. Gain of the amplifier

In the Figure 7, we can see that the gain is 11.222dB in the

frequency of 2.4GHZ and it is also right for our requirements.
D.

From the Figure 8, we can see that in the frequency of

2.4GHZ, the input VSWR is 1.398dB and the output VSWR is
1.354dB.

Input and output VSWR

VI.

CONCLUSIONS

In this paper, we design a low-noise amplifier whose

centre-frequency is 2.4GHZ. Its gain is about 11.222dB and its
noise figure, input and output VSWR are 2.654dB, 1.398dB
and 1.354dB respectively. The results represent that the
amplifier we design is fulfill the requirements.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the Communication
Institute of New Technologies of BISTU for providing ADS
bought from Agilent to us.
REFERENCES
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[4]

[5]
Figure 8. Input and output VSWR

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