A SiGe BiCMOS K-Band LNA with 1.5 dB Noise Figure for LEO SATCOM Terminals

This paper presents a K-band Low Noise Amplifier (LNA) targeting user terminals for low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communication systems. The circuit, fabricated in STMicroelectronics' BiCMOS55X SiGe technology, achieves a measured peak gain of 15 dB over a 3-dB bandwidth ranging from 17.7 to 23.1 GHz. A minimum noise figure of 1.5 dB is recorded, with an input 1-dB compression point of −11 dBm. The amplifier operates from a 2.4 V supply and draws only 10 mA of current, demonstrating an effective trade-off between noise performance and power efficiency. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this work achieves the lowest reported noise figure among published K-band SiGe LNAs. The core circuit occupies a compact area of just 0.11 mm2, excluding pads, making it well-suited for dense front-end integration in next-generation SATCOM user terminals.