11
Noise Parameter Applications Information
Fminvaluesat2GHzandhigherarebasedonmeasure-
mentswhiletheFminsbelow2GHzhavebeenextrapo-
lated.TheFminvaluesarebasedonasetof16noisefigure
measurementsmadeat16differentimpedancesusingan
ATNNP5testsystem.Fromthesemeasurements,atrue
Fminiscalculated.Fminrepresentsthetrueminimumnoise
figureofthedevicewhenthedeviceispresentedwithan
impedancematchingnetworkthattransformsthesource
impedance,typically50,toanimpedancerepresented
bythereflectioncoefficientΓo.Thedesignermustdesign
amatchingnetworkthatwillpresentΓotothedevicewith
minimalassociatedcircuitlosses.Thenoisefigureofthe
completedamplifierisequaltothenoisefigureofthe
deviceplusthelossesofthematchingnetworkpreceding
thedevice.ThenoisefigureofthedeviceisequaltoFmin
onlywhenthedeviceispresentedwithΓo.Ifthereflection
coefficientofthematchingnetworkisotherthanΓo,then
thenoisefigureofthedevicewillbegreaterthanFmin
basedonthefollowingequation.
NF=Fmin+4Rn|Γs–Γo|2
Zo(|1+Γo|2)(1–Γs|2)
WhereRn/Zoisthenormalizednoiseresistance,Γoisthe
optimumreflectioncoefficientrequiredtoproduceFmin
andΓsisthereflectioncoefficientofthesourceimped-
anceactuallypresentedtothedevice.Thelossesofthe
matchingnetworksarenon-zeroandtheywillalsoadd
tothenoisefigureofthedevicecreatingahigherampli-
fier noise figure. The losses of the matching networks
arerelatedtotheQofthecomponentsandassociated
printedcircuitboardloss.Γoistypicallyfairlylowathigher
frequenciesandincreasesasfrequencyislowered.Larger
gatewidthdeviceswilltypicallyhavealowerΓoascom-
paredtonarrowergatewidthdevices.
TypicallyforFETs,thehigherΓousuallyinfersthatanim-
pedancemuchhigherthan50isrequiredforthedevice
to produce Fmin. AtVHF frequencies and even lower L
Bandfrequencies,therequiredimpedancecanbeinthe
vicinity of several thousand ohms. Matching to such a
highimpedancerequiresveryhi-Qcomponentsinorder
to minimize circuit losses. As an example at 900 MHz,
whenairwwoundcoils(Q>100)areusedformatching
networks,thelosscanstillbeupto0.25dBwhichwilladd
directlytothenoisefigureofthedevice.Usingmuiltilayer
moldedinductorswithQsinthe30to50rangeresults
inadditionallossovertheairwoundcoil.Lossesashigh
as0.5dBorgreateraddtothetypical0.15dBFminofthe
devicecreatinganamplifiernoisefigureofnearly0.65dB.
Adiscussionconcerningcalculatedandmeasuredcircuit
lossesandtheireffectonamplifiernoisefigureiscovered
inAvagoApplication1085.