Proceedings of ESSCIRC, Grenoble, France, 2005

A Cellular-Band CDMA 0.25um CMOS LNA

Linearized using Active Post-Distortion
Namsoo kim, Vladimir Aparin, Kenneth Barnett, and Charles Persico
Qualcomm, 5775 Morehouse Drive, San Diego, CA 92122, USA
nkim@qualcomm.com

Abstract:

out

The theory of a linearization method using active postdistortion(APD) is explained. The method was used in
a 0.25m CMOS LNA, designed for cellular band CDMA
applications. The LNA achieves 1.2dB NF, 16.2dB power
gain, and +8dBm IIP3 while consuming 12mA current
from 2.6V supply voltage. It shows 5.7dBm improvement
in IIP3 performance with 0.15dB NF penalty in comparison with an LNA which does not use APD.

M2(g1/ )
Bias

The simplied schematic diagram of the LNA using APD

method is shown in Figure 1, where M1 and M2 form the

0-7803-9205-1/05/$20.00 2005 IEEE

M1(g1)

2. Theory of Active Post-Distortion

227

M3(g1/ )

1. Introduction
In a CDMA receiver(Rx), the linearity becomes critical
performance due to so called cross modulation distortion(XMD) [1]. XMD of a close in FM jammer in presence of a transmitter(Tx) signal leakage will corrupt the
signal to noise ratio(SNR) for in-band signal before it proceeds further. Once the SNR is contaminated at the frontend side, designing following stages might be restricted
in terms of linearity performance of mixer and phase
noise requirement of voltage controlled oscillator(VCO)
depending on the nal SNR specication. Therefore, having highly linear LNA can alleviate the performance requirement of the other blocks which will return in low
power consumption and less area.
There have been some efforts to improve CMOS LNA linearity [2],[3]. The method used in [2] is based on modied derivative super-position method which cancels 3rd
order non-linearity using two different biases, saturation
region where g3 has negative polarity and sub-threshold
region where g3 has positive one. The existence of subthreshold biased FET causes noticeable amount of noise
increase and introduces more parasitic gate-to-source capacitance. The other technique, used in [3], uses feedforward cancellation, which requires external signal splitting subassemblies.
This paper describes the theory of an active psotdistortion(APD) method adopted in a cellular band LNA
for the CDMA applications. The LNA is implemented
in 0.25m Si CMOS process. Measured results are presented.

M4

LS

Figure 1: Simplied Schematic Diagram of APD.

main signal path, and M3 and M4 form the auxiliary path
used for distortion cancellation.

2.1

Low Frequency Theory of APD Method

The drain current of M1 can be represented by the following power series

2
3
+ g3 vgs1
+ ,
i1 (vgs ) = g1 vgs1 + g2 vgs1

(1)

where g1 is the small signal trans-conductance and the

higher order coefcients g2 , g3 , . For small signal and
weakly nonlinear case, the nonlinearities higher than 3rd
order can be ignored. Assuming that M2 is linear, the v2
and drain current of M3 can be respectively expressed by
v2 =
i3 =

i1 ,
g1

1
(g1 v2 + g2 v22 + g3 v23 ),

(2a)
(2b)

where and are the ratio of trans-conductance between M1 and M2 ,and betweenM1 and M3 , respectively,
as shown in Figure 1. Inserting (1) and (2a) into (2b) and
combining i2 with i3 , we can nd the following expressions for the 1st and 3rd order power-series coefcients fo

Paper 4.F.3

Proceedings of ESSCIRC, Grenoble, France, 2005

20

the output current:

10

(3a)
(3b)

Equation (3a) represents the gain loss of APD method. As

can be seen, the gain loss is directly related to and and
perfectly same result with [3] even without external signal
splitting subassemblies. The larger leads less gain loss
but does not really mean less cancellation. The rst term in
(3b) is 3rd order nonlinearity contribution and the second
term is the 2nd order nonlinearity contribution. With given
width and power consumption, we can solve (3b) to make
3rd order nonlinearity to be zero. The value of need to
be optimized to prevent too much gain loss. Let =8, then
the solution brings =1.35 in our specic application.
Because of the 2nd order nonlinearity, the cancellation is
fairly depending on bias condition with xed and as
shown in Figure 2. The technique introduced in [4] uses
similar approach but the theory missed this 2nd order nonlinear contribution which can not be ignored.

2.2 High Frequency Theory of APD Method

Since the application is for CDMA cellular band which
is around 900MHz, the memory elements such as capacitance and inductance will affect nonlinearity performance
with frequency dependency.
The simplied equivalent circuit can be depicted as in Figure 3, where Z1 is input matching element ,Cgsn is gate-tosource capacitance for Mn , vgsn is gate-to-source voltage
across Cgsn , and LS is source degeneration inductance.
The nonlinearities we are going to consider are only from
M1 and M3 , in other words, the cascode devices are assumed to be linear devices.
Unlike in memoryless case, the 2nd harmonic (2RF )
with the 2nd order nonlinearity contributes to the 3rd order
distortion and generates 3rd order inter modulation distortion in high frequency applications. Conceptually, it
can be explained that the 2RF at source node of M1 can
mix with RF at gate node of M1 such that generates 3rd
order inter modulation distortion(IMD3 ). The nonlinear
total output current of APD method can be expressed in
weakly non-linear region by

IIP3 [dBm]




g1 = g1 1
,



3
2g 2 2
g3 = g3 1
+ 2 .

g1

With Cancellation

-10
-20

Without Cancellation

0.6

0.65

0.7

0.75

0.8 0.85
VGS [V]

0.9

0.95

Figure 2: Low Frequency Cancellation.

The input signal is small enough such that LNA operates in weakly non-linear region.
The vgs1 can be expressed as a function of v1 as well:
vgs1 = A1 (s) v1 + A2 (s1 , s2 ) v12 + A3 (s1 , s2 , s3 ) v13 .
(5)
This non-linear voltage generates non-linear current which
will pass through M2 and generates v2 with impedance
related to v2 node. Then, the current from M3 will have
non-linear components with the ratio of and . The nonlinearities generated are
1 : 2nd and 3rd order nonlinearities generated by M1
and attenuated by /.
2 : 2nd order nonlinearity of M1 multiplied by 2nd
order nonlinearity of M3 .
3 : 3rd order nonlinearity of M3 .
By adjusting and values, the amplitude and phase of
these nonlinearities can be optimized such that the maximum IIP3 can be obtained.
The cancellation mechanism is shown in Figure 4 and the
nonlinearities can be derived as
M1 = g1 A3 (s1 , s2 , s3 ) + 2g2 A1 (s1 )A2 (s1 , s2 )
+ g3 A1 (s1 )A1 (s2 )A1 (s3 ), (6)

1 = M1 ,

i = C1 (s)v1 +C2 (s1 , s2 )v12 +C3 (s1 , s2 , s3 )v13 , (4)

2 =

where Cn (s1 , s2 , , sn ) is the Laplace transform of the

nth-order Volterra kernel and the operator means that
each spectral component of v1n is to be multiplied by the
magnitude of Cn (s1 , s2 , , sn ) and shifted by the phase
of Cn (s1 , s2 , , sn ). To derive Volterra kernels, following
assumptions are made:

g2 2 2
[2g1 A1 (s1 )A2 (s1 , s2 )

+ 2g1 g2 A1 (s1 )A1 (s1 )A1 (s3 )],

3 =

g3 3 3
g A1 (s1 )A1 (s2 )A1 (s3 ),
1

(7)

(8)
(9)

where

All capacitances are negligible except Cgs .

All dc resistances related to source and drain node
are zero including degeneration inductance.
gmb of M1 -M4 are zero,i.e., body effects are negligible.

228

A1 (s) =

1
,
sLS g1 + sCgs1 (sLS + Z1 (s)) + 1

(10)

1
A1 (s1 )A2 (s1 , s2 ) = A1 (s)|A1 (s)|2 A1 (2s)2sLS g2 ,
3
(11)

Proceedings of ESSCIRC, Grenoble, France, 2005

Imag

out

ds2
gs2

gs2

gs4

gs4

Real

1
2

Z1

gs3
gs1

gs1

gs3
ds1

ds3

Figure 4: Cancellation Mechanism.

ids1 = g1vgs1 +g2vgs12 +g3vgs13

ids2 = g1vgs2/
ids3 = (g1vgs3 +g2vgs32 +g3vgs33)/

tion.

i2ng3,o

Figure 3: Simplied Equivalent Circuit Diagram.

A3 (s1 , s2 , s3 ) = sLS A1 (s)2 |A1 (s)|2


2
g22 A1 (2s)2sLS + g3 .
3

g1

sCgs2,3 +

g1

4kT gg,3 f,

(14)

where
gg,3 =
(12)

Inserting (10),(11), and (12) into (6),(7),(8), and (9) and

assuming conjugate match at (1 2 )and (=
2 -1 ) to be much smaller than 1 and 2 , we can derive
summed IM3:



IM3 =A1 (s)|A1 (s)|2 1




2 2
1
2
g2 A1 (2s)2sLs
+
3
2


3
1

2 g22
+g3

+2
A1 (s)3 . (13)
2
g1
To get the maximum IIP3 performance, we can solve (13).
As can be seen, there are three major components in (13),
3rd order nonlinearity, 2nd order nonlinearity with 2nd order harmonic, and 2nd order nonlinearity. With =8, IIP3
is plotted in Figure 5. As can be seen from Figure 5,
=1.35 used in low frequency application is no longer
optimum value due to 2nd order nonlinearity cooperating
with 2nd harmonic.

2.3 Effect of APD to Noise

Unlike the methods used in [2], the APD method does not
require sub-threshold biased FET which will cause noticeable increase of NF. The noise from M1 will be as same as
in conventional inductively degenerated LNA. In the APD
method, the additional noise contribution from the cancellation path needs to be considered. The gate induced noise
from the M3 at output can be expressed as following equa-

229

2
2 Cgs,3
.
5gd0,3

(15)

and Cgs2,3 is total gate-to-source capacitance related to

M2 and M3 . In equation (14) and (15), k is Boltzmanns
constant, T is absolute temperature, is the bias dependant constant which is 4/3 in long channel device, gd0,3
is drain-source conductance with zero VDS , and Cgs,3 is
gate-source capacitance of M3 . The drain noise of M3 can
be derived as
i2nd3,o = 4kT gd0,3 f = 4kT

gm,1
f,

(16)

where is bias dependent constant and usually 2/3 in long

channel device. Since gd0 is equal to gm in long channel device, equation (16) could be true if we assume no
short channel effects. As can be seen from (14) and (16),
increasing minimizes NF performance penalty which
agrees with less gain loss.

3.

LNA Design

As described in section 2, the trans-conductance ratios

(M1 and M2 ) and ( M1 and M3 ) are needed to be optimized to get the best cancellation effect with reasonable
power consumption and gain loss. The designed LNA has
same architecture with Figure 1 and additional attenuation modes achieving -8dB and -20dB gains. The attenuation mode is simple resistive T-network. The LNA also
has electrostatic discharge(ESD) protection diodes at input and output pads.
M1 and degeneration inductance were chosen to have optimum NF performance with high power gain. After that,
the M2 and M3 were sized to have best cancellation effect
while minimizing gain loss and NF performance decrease.

Proceedings of ESSCIRC, Grenoble, France, 2005

20

25

1.4
NF [dB]

20

IIP3 [dBm]

10

S21 [dB]

With Cancellation

1.3

15
10

1.2

Icc [mA]

IIP3 with cancellation [dBm]

1.1

Without Cancellation

-10

IIP3 without cancellation [dBm]

-5

-20

0.75

0.7

0.75

0.8

0.9
0.85
VGS [V]

0.95

0.8

0.85

0.9

0.95

VGS [V]

Figure 6: Measured Performances.

Figure 5: High Frequency Cancellation.

40

The LNA is manufactured with 0.25m Si CMOS process

and packaged with BCC 32pin. The measured results
show that the LNA has 16.2dB power gain, 1.2dB NF, and
12mA power consumption excluding bias circuitry from
2.6V supply. The measured performances, power gain,
NF, IIP3, and power consumption, are shown in Figure 6
along with VGS . The linearity performance with various
input power is measured and shown in Figure 7. The input and output return losses are measured less than -10dB.
The LNA was measured with cancellation path on and off.
The gain difference was around 1.3dB while noise gure
difference around 0.15dB. The noise gure without cancellation is 1.05dB and power gain is 17.5dB. The IM3
cancellation was about 13.5dB such that the IIP3 performance is improved to +8dBm from +2.25dBm.
Actually, the LNA was designed to have optimized IIP3
and NF performance at 10mA current consumption and
to reduce 20dB IM3 distortion but the other effects we ignored such as body effect and short channel effects seemed
cause the offset between designed and measured performances. Based on the results from [1], the IIP3 of LNA
used in CDMA cellular applications needs to have more
than +8dBm to meet the XMD requirement. The designed
LNA meets the requirement with low enough NF(1.2dB)
and high power gain(16.2dB). The additional advantage
of this approach is whenever we dont need high IIP3 performance, we can turn cancellation path off and reduce
current until it has same gain and NF performance with
cancellation path on case. From the designed LNA, the
current can be reduced to 5mA where it has 16dB power
gain , 1.2dB NF, and -2.5dBm IIP3 .

5. Conclusions
We have analyzed a CMOS LNA which is using APD
method to increase linearity performance. The theory of
APD method is explained for low and high frequency applications and the NF effects caused by the APD method is
investigated as well. The LNA is implemented in 0.25m
Si CMOS process for CDMA cellular band application.

230

Output [dBm]

20

4. Measured Results

Fundamental

0
-20

+8dBm

-40
-60

IM3

-80

-100
-120
-40

-30

-20

-10

10

Input [dBm]

Figure 7: Measured IIP3 .

The measured results shows APD method improves linearity with good NF and gain.

References:
[1] Vladimir Aparin and Lawrence E. Larson. Analysis and reduction of cross modulation distortion in
cdma receivers. Mircowave Theory and Techniques,
51(5):15911602, May 2003.
[2] Vladimir Aparin and Lawrence E. Larson. Modied
derivative superposition method for linearizing fet low
noise ampliers. Mircowave Theory and Techniques,
53(2):571581, Feb. 2005.
[3] Y. Ding and R. Harjani. A +18dbm IIP3 LNA in 0.35
CMOS. In ISSCC, pages 162163. IEEE, 2001.
[4] C-.S-. Kim C-.H-. Kim and Y-.K-. Yu. RF active balun
for improving small signal linearity. In U.S. Patent.
US 6,4773,595.