A low power flexible PGA for software defined radio systems

This paper proposes a new low power structure to improve the trade-off between the bandwidth and the power consumption of a programmable gain amplifier (PGA). The PGA consists of three-stage amplifiers, which includes a variable gain amplifier and DC offset cancellation circuits. The cutoff frequency of the DC offset cancellation circuits can be changed from 4 to 80 kHz. The chip was fabricated in 0.13 μm CMOS technology. Measurement results showed that the gain of the PGA can be programmed from −5 to 60 dB. At the gain setting of 60 dB, the bandwidth can be tuned from 1 to 10 MHz, while the power consumption can be programmed from 850 μA to 3.2 mA at a supply voltage of 1.2 V. Its in-band OIP3 result is at 14 dBm. (semiconductor integrated circuits)