Abstract: This paper presents the design and measured performance of a wideband amplifier for a direct conversion satellite tuner. It is composed of a wideband low noise amplifier (LNA) and a two-stage RF variable gain amplifier (VGA) with linear gain in dB and temperature compensation schemes. To meet the system linearity requirement, an improved distortion compensation technique and a bypass mode are applied on the LNA to deal with the large input signal. Wideband matching is achieved by resistive feedback and an off-chip LC-ladder matching network. A large gain control range (over 80 dB) is achieved by the VGA with process voltage and temperature compensation and dB linearization. In total, the amplifier consumes up to 26 mA current from a 3.3 V power supply. It is fabricated in a 0.35-μ m SiGe BiCMOS technology and occupies a silicon area of 0.25 mm².

Key words: SiGe BiCMOS