A New Approach to Multi-Objective Optimization of a Tapered Matrix Distributed Amplifier for UWB Applications

Abstract

Using of ultra-wideband (UWB) technology in radio transceiver systems has increased in recent years due to high-speed data transmission, low power dissipation, low cost, and low complexity. In particular, distributed amplifier (DA) is a critical component of transceiver in UWB technology. However, designing an ultra-wideband DA with high performance becomes challenging. The DA design suffers from the tight trade-offs between the amplifier parameters such as gain, noise, linearity, input/output impedance matching, and power dissipation. In this paper, a new approach for multi-objective optimization of the DA is introduced. In the proposed approach, the meta-heuristic optimization techniques are applied over the entire bandwidth of the UWB, while the most recent optimization approaches for amplifiers are performed at the center frequency and they can’t achieve the proper design specifications for wideband amplifiers. The simultaneous optimization of power gain (S21), noise figure (NF), input and output return loss (S11 and S22) are conducted over the wide bandwidth using three multi-objective optimization algorithms including Multi-Objective Inclined Planes System Optimization (MOIPO), Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-II), and Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (MOPSO). The obtained results demonstrate the tapered matrix DA optimized by MOIPO exhibits better performance than others. The circuit simulations are performed in 0.18 µm TSMC RF-CMOS technology. Simulation results show that the optimized tapered matrix DA by MOIPO, compared to NSGA-II and MOPSO, exhibits a good performance over the frequency band of 0.1–28 GHz with maximum S21 of 12.9 dB, NF less than 5.9 dB, S11 and S22 below than  − 10 dB over the whole frequency band. The DC power dissipation is 25 mW from a 1.5 V supply.