A Fully Differential Monolithic LNA With On-Chip Antenna for a Short Range Wireless Receiver

Abstract

This letter presents the smallest reported 5 GHz receiver chip (1.3 mm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> ) with an on-chip antenna in standard 0.13 mum CMOS process. The miniaturization is achieved by placing the circuits inside a meandered antenna. The on-chip antenna is conjugately matched to the low noise amplifier (LNA) over a wide frequency range. The design methodology for co-design of the on-chip antenna and LNA is described. The LNA is completely differential, consumes only 8 mW of power and provides a gain of 21 dB. Design tradeoffs and measurement challenges are given.