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Fully Automatically Synthesized mm-Wave Low-Noise Amplifiers for 5G/6G Applications

Mendes, L. ; Silva, J. C. Silva ; Lourenço, N. ; Vaz, J. ; Martins, R. M. ; Passos, F.

IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques Vol. , Nº , pp. 1 - 0, , 2025.

ISSN (print): 0018-9480
ISSN (online): 1557-9670

Scimago Journal Ranking: 1,63 (in 2023)

Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/TMTT.2025.3537588

Abstract
This work describes a fully automated design methodology applied to the design of millimeter-wave (mm-Wave) low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) in a 65-nm CMOS technology. The proposed approach is the first fully automated design methodology to consider an mm-Wave circuit with fully automatic sizing and layout synthesis with prototype measurement. Two LNAs were fabricated and experimentally characterized. LNA1 prototype, targeted for low power consumption, dissipates 2.26 mW @ VDD = 0.6 V to achieve a 3-dB S21 bandwidth (BW) of 8.4 GHz (from 22.3 to 30.7 GHz), a noise figure (NF) of 3.8 dB at 28 GHz, a peak gain of 10 dB, and an input 1-dB compression point (IP1 dB) of -8.7 dBm. LNA2 prototype, targeted for lower NF and higher gain, presents a consumption of 4.8 mW @ VDD = 0.6 V, achieving a BW of 7.3 GHz (from 22.3 to 29.6 GHz), an NF at 28 GHz of 3.47 dB, a peak gain 13.9 dB, and an IP1 dB of -11.74 dBm. Using such a design methodology, it was possible to achieve performance improvements of more than 50% in power consumption and figure of merit (FOM) when compared to recent works.