Process and temperature compensation for RF low-noise amplifiers and mixers

Abstract

Temperature and process variations have become key issues in the design of integrated circuits using deep submicron technologies. In RF front-end circuitry, many characteristics must be compensated in order to maintain acceptable performance across all process corners and throughout the temperature range. This paper proposes a new technique consisting of a compensation circuit that adapts and generates the appropriate bias voltage for LNAs and mixers so that the variability with temperature and process corners of their main performance metrics (S-parameters, gain, noise figure, etc.) is minimized.