A Comparative Analysis of 60-GHz LNAs for Low-Power mm-Wave Receivers

This paper presents a comparative analysis of 1stage and 2 -stage 60−GHz low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) in 28−nm bulk CMOS technology. The focus is on key design parameters such as gain, noise figure (NF), 3-dB bandwidth (BW3 dB), and linearity. The LNAs are optimized for millimeter-wave (mmwave) applications, exploiting a pseudo-differential topology with an integrated input balun for both electro-static discharge (ESD) protection and optimal input/noise matching, while maintaining low power consumption. The study reports a maximum voltage gain of 21.4 dB and 19.3 dB at 60 GHz with bandwidth of 2 GHz and 6 GHz for the 1 -stage/ 2 -stage LNAs, respectively. Moreover, the LNAs exhibit noise figure values of 6.3 dB and 6.9 dB,1−dB compression point (IP1 dB) of -19.4 dBm and -14.4 dBm, and total power consumption of 5.2 mW and 8.3 mW for 1 -stage /2-stage configurations, respectively. These results demonstrate an effective trade-off between performance and power efficiency, highlighting pros and cons of 1-stage and 2-stage LNAs for mm-wave applications.