A 220-GHz Low-Noise CMOS Receiver Utilizing Noise Cancellation and Gain Enhancement

This article presents a 220-GHz low-noise receiver (RX) implemented in a 40-nm bulk CMOS process with <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$f_{T}$</tex-math> </inline-formula>/<inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$f_{\max }=300$</tex-math> </inline-formula>/270 GHz. The RX comprises a two-stage low-noise amplifier (LNA), a single-balanced active mixer, and an intermediate frequency (IF) amplifier. To enhance gain and suppress noise of LNA, a tri-coil g<sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">m</sub>-boosting network and an inductor-assisted differential noise-cancellation network are proposed. The core of LNA is designed using a lossy-<inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$G_{\max }$</tex-math> </inline-formula>-core to simultaneously achieve noise and gain matching. The proposed active mixer integrates a noise-self-cancellation network embedded between gate and source of the switch stage and utilizes the lossy-<inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$G_{\max }$</tex-math> </inline-formula>-core as the g<sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">m</sub>-stage, improving both conversion gain (CG) and noise performance. The RX achieves a CG of 17.8 dB, a minimum noise figure of 11.8 dB, and an input 1-dB compression point (IP<inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${}_{\mathrm {1dB}}$</tex-math> </inline-formula>) of −24.7 dBm while consuming 35.5 mW. The design occupies a total area of only 0.2 mm<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup>, with a core area of 0.078 mm<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup>. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work demonstrates the lowest reported noise figure among CMOS RXs operating above 200 GHz.