SIGNAL AND NOISE ANALYSIS OF SMALL ANTENNAS

TERMINATED WITH HIGH-IMPEDANCE AMPLIFIERS

K. F. Warnick, M. A. Jensen
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602 USA
jensen@ee.byu.edu, warnick@ee.byu.edu

Keywords: electrically small antennas, array antennas, broad- be the key objective. Instead, if the antenna terminals are diband antennas, noise matching
rectly connected to a high-impedance transducer (similar to an
operational amplifier), the antenna simply measures the field
strength without having the goal of transferring power to the
receive electronics.

Abstract

We consider the noise performance of a high impedance amplifier as a receiver front end for an electrically small antenna. In
comparison to standard impedance matching techniques, the resulting output signal to noise ratio is suboptimal, but the bandwidth is much broader than can be achieved when a small antenna with high Q-factor is matched to a standard microwave
amplifier. These results suggest that high impedance amplifiers
with carefully designed noise parameters may allow fundamental bandwidth limits for small antennas to be bypassed, thereby
enabling small, ultra-wideband receivers for size-constrained
wireless device applications.

1 Introduction
A key challenge associated with providing wireless connectivity to portable devices is the lack of small yet efficient antenna
designs which can be conveniently packaged on the equipment.
The difficulty is particularly great when the small antenna must
operate over multiple bands for software-defined/cognitive radio or very broad bandwidths for ultra-wideband communication. Similarly, when antenna diversity or multiple-input
multiple-output (MIMO) communication is desired, the small
platform size results in dramatic electromagnetic coupling
which, without the addition of sophisticated matching and decoupling networks, can result in degraded communication link
quality.
While physical limitations place constraints on the operating characteristics of small antennas or compact arrays, much
of our understanding of these constraints stems from our traditional approaches for interfacing the antenna with the radio
circuitry. The conventional approach is to design an antenna
which efficiently transfers power between the free-space wave
and a transmission line. When the antenna is receiving an electromagnetic wave, however, power transfer does not have to

This alternative configuration, which is used in low-end field

sensors but not typically for communications, has several interesting ramifications. First, the concept of impedance matching
becomes irrelevant, as now the goal is voltage rather than power
transfer. This allows the use of smaller antennas for communication. Furthermore, the impact of the frequency response
of the antenna and/or amplifier is reduced, and ultra-wideband
operation becomes feasible even for very small structures. Finally, for arrays of closely spaced antennas, the fact that the
high-impedance load results in low antenna terminal currents
will impact the effect of mutual coupling.
When evaluating the performance of small antennas terminated with high-impedance amplifiers and comparing it to the
performance of more traditional architectures, the key consideration becomes the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) at the receiver
output. This paper provides a detailed signal and noise analysis
of such antenna/amplifier configurations. The results show that
with available technology, field sensing circuits can provide an
SNR which may be adequate for many applications, despite
the fact that no matching network is employed for the highimpedance configuration. Furthermore, the results demonstrate
the increase in operation bandwidth and reduction in physical
antenna size enabled by the field-sensing approach.
Naturally, these benefits alone do not guarantee that this architecture is optimal for a given situation. For example, highimpedance termination and amplification will remove the natural frequency selectivity enabled by traditional antenna configurations, and therefore the system may be subject to increased
levels of out-of-band interference. Furthermore, when operating on transmit where power transfer from the power amplifier
to the free-space wave is critical, the small antenna designed
for reception may not be effective. Finally, reducing the antenna size will generally reduce the achieved terminal voltage.
This paper explores these considerations and suggests applications for which the technology is appropriate.

Amplifier Noise Matching

source open circuit voltage to the voltage across the amplifier

load. If the equivalent external noise temperature is Text , then
We briefly review here the classical theory of two-port noise the external noise power dissipated in the load is
matching for a particular amplifier noise model [1]. Noise due
4|Q|2 Rr
kb Text B
(4)
Pext =
to external thermal radiation and interference from other transZ
mitters is received by the antenna, which serves as a source
 0 
Ga
at the amplifier input, and the amplifier itself contributes additional noise to the received signal. The goal is to design the amwhere kb is Boltzmans constant, B is the system bandwidth,
plifier and source impedance so that the amplifier adds as little
and Rr is the radiation resistance of the antenna. The leading
as possible additional noise, while still delivering enough gain
fraction is the available power gain of the amplifier. It remains
that the signal level presented to subsequent receiver stages is
to determine the amplifier noise contribution. From the circuit
adequate. In this analysis, we will neglect noise contributed by
model in Figure 1, the amplifier noise power delivered to the
the antenna itself, which is equivalent to assuming a lossless
load is
antenna.

B  2
For convenience, we will assume that the amplifier is univn (1 + Yc Zr + Yc Zr ) + |Zr |2 i2n
(5)
Pn = Ga
4R
r
lateral and that the output is matched to the system impedance
Z0 = 50 , so that the impedance matrix is



Za
0
Za =
2gZa Z0

(1)

where g is the voltage gain of the amplifier. The ports are numbered in the standard way, so that Za is the impedance looking
into the input port, Z0 is the impedance looking into the output port, and 2gZa represents signal transfer from the input to
the output port. We will also assume a matched load, so that
ZL = Z0 .

where we have used (2) to separate the correlated and uncorrelated parts of the current noise.
The system SNR is defined in terms of power levels at the
amplifier output, but it is convenient to express noise powers as
equivalent temperatures referred to the source. The equivalent
external noise temperature at the source is simply Text . The
equivalent amplifier noise temperature is
Tn =


1  2
vn (1 + Yc Zr + Yc Zr ) + |Zr |2 i2n
4Rr kb

The equivalent amplifier noise temperature is related to the

noise figure F of the amplifier by Teq = (F 1)T0 , where
T0 = 290 K. In terms of equivalent temperatures, the SNR at
the amplifier output is

vn
in
ZL

SNR =
Figure 1: Amplifier noise model.
The noise performance of an amplifier is typically specified
in terms of equivalent noise voltage and current sources at the
input
of a noise-free amplifier. The RMS noise
density is vn
(V/ Hz) and the current density is in (A/ Hz). The voltage and current noise signals can be correlated. To specify the
degree of correlation, a correlation admittance can be defined
such that the current noise is decomposed according to
in = Yc vn + iu
where iu is uncorrelated with vn .

(6)

|
vs |2 /(8Rr )
kb B(Text + Tn )

(7)

where the numerator is the available signal power at the antenna

terminals.

The object of noise matching is to minimize the amplifier

noise contribution, and thereby to maximize the SNR at the amplifier output. For this purpose, Equation (6) for the available
equivalent amplifier noise temperature is a very useful expression, since the output SNR is maximized if Tn is minimized. It
can be seen that Tn includes the impact of signal transfer from
the source to the amplifier input, since the radiation resistance
(2) Rr appears in the denominator.

The basic noise matching procedure is to design a matching

network to transform the source impedance Zr to an optiFor a signal incident on the antenna, the output voltage at the
mal
impedance Zopt which minimizes Tn . Minimizing Tn alamplifier load is
ways leads to the largest possible SNR at the amplifier output.
Za
vs,L = g
vs
(3) The source impedance can also be transformed to the conjugate
Za + Zr
matched amplifier input impedance for maximum power trans  
fer, but if Zopt is different from Za , the SNR will be lower than
Q
the optimal value.
where Zr is the antenna input impedance and vs is the open
As an upper bound on performance, it is helpful to know the
circuit signal voltage at the antenna terminals. From this expression, we define Q to be the voltage transfer ratio from the maximum achievable SNR if the source impedance were equal

to Zopt . It can be shown from (5) that the minimum equivalent

amplifier noise temperature is


vn in
2
Tmin =
1 ci + cr
(8)
2kb

Single Dipole (0.2 at 900 MHz)

20
15
10
5

2.1

SNR (dB)

where the voltage/current noise correlation coefficient c = cr +

jci is related to the correlation admittance by Yc = cin /vn .

Noise Matching for Small Antennas

0
5
10
15

The fundamental difficulty with noise matching for electrically

small antennas is that the antenna input impedance is highly
reactive, and a high Q matching network is required to transform the antenna impedance to the optimal impedance for best
noise performance. This is illustrated in Figures 2 and 3, which
show the SNR achieved for a half wave dipole and a short
dipole with various matching conditions at the junction between the antenna
and the amplifier
input port. In these results,

vd = 2 nV/ Hz, id = 3 pA/ Hz, c = 0.4j, and Text = 290 K.

For the specified amplifier noise parameters, Tmin = 200 K.
The signal is a plane wave incident at broadside with power
density 100 pW/m2 . The antenna lengths are specified at a design center frequency f0 = 900 MHz.
Single Dipole (0.5 at 900 MHz)
25

20

Theoretical SNR Bound

No matching network
Quarter wave and reactance

25
30

0.7

0.8

0.9
1
Frequency (GHz)

1.1

1.2

Figure 3: SNR at amplifier output for a small dipole antenna.

Matching requires a high-Q network, so that performance is
close to the theoretical limit only over a narrow bandwidth.
desirable that the amplifier noise temperature be small relative to the external noise temperature, so that the decrease in
SNR due to amplifier noise is small as possible. For the case
of no matching network, due to the poor matching condition
between the antenna and amplifier input port, when referred to
the source the amplifier noise corresponds to a large equivalent
temperature.

SNR (dB)

20

High Impedance Amplifier

15

10
Theoretical SNR Bound
No matching network
Quarter wave and reactance
5

0.7

0.8

0.9
1
Frequency (GHz)

1.1

1.2

We will now consider the ramifications of loading the antenna

with a high impedance amplifier. From Equation (7), it can
be seen that the amplifier output SNR is independent of the
amplifier input impedance Za . Overall system performance,
however, is still influenced by Za , since the available power
gain


 Za 2 Rr
2

Ga = |g| 
(9)
Za + Zr  Zo

Figure 2: SNR at amplifier output for a half wave dipole an- depends on Z . Even when the output SNR is high, if the availa
tenna. Performance with a simple matching network is good able power gain of the amplifier is small, then the signal level at
over a relatively broad band.
the amplifier output will be low, and additional low-noise gain
stages will be required to increase the signal level sufficiently
For the half wave dipole, a simple matching network suffices
for detection or other processing. It has been shown that optito achieve good noise performance over a relatively broad band.
mal system performance is achieved for a first stage amplifier
For the short dipole, the matching network must have a higher
when the noise measure
quality factor and therefore the SNR approaches the optimal
limit only over a very narrow band. The theoretical SNR bound
F 1
(10)
M=
assumes that the amplifier noise temperature is equal to Tmin
1 1/Ga
for all frequencies, which is not achievable in practice due to
Bode-Fano bandwidth limitations, but provides a useful metric is minimized [2].
for judging the performance of realizable matching conditions.
For an electrically small antenna with a reactive input
It is instructive to consider to individual amplifier and ex- impedance, the gain is reduced as |Zr | becomes large, since the
ternal noise equivalent temperatures, shown in Figure 4. It is voltage across the amplifier input impedance is small. If the

Single Dipole (0.2 at 0.9 GHz)

Equivalent Temperature (K)

10

10

10

reactance so that |Zr | is smaller. A vast amount of antenna

design work has been done to meet this goal over as large a
bandwidth as possible. As has been noted, theoretical Q-factor
bounds for electrically small antennas indicate that there are
fundamental limits on the bandwidth over which a favorable
input impedance can be achieved. The goal of this work is to
determine if there are other ways to increase receiver SNR in
addition to pushing the antenna closer to the Q-factor bound.

Instead of modifying the antenna, it is also possible to change

the
amplifier noise parameters to increase the SNR given a par2
10
ticular
antenna impedance. Since the noise parameters are proExternal noise
LNA noise (SNR Bound)
duced by physical processes within the amplifier, there is only
LNA noise (No matching network)
a limited range over which these parameters can be varied in
LNA noise (Quarter wave and reactance)
0
10
practice. Holding out the possibility that the parameters can be
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
1.1
1.2
influenced substantially by changing the device characteristics
Frequency (GHz)
or using a non-standard circuit topology, we will optimize the
Figure 4: Equivalent external and amplifier noise temperatures system noise performance with respect to the noise parameters
with only a modest attempt to constrain them based on physical
for a small dipole antenna.
considerations.
amplifier input impedance is also large, however, then the signal voltage at the amplifier input is large, and the available gain
increases. Although the SNR is independent of amplifier input
impedance, if the antenna is not matched for power transfer, a
high input impedance is necessary in order to achieve a decent
available power gain and avoid a reduction in the noise measure of the amplifier. This is a performance benefit of a high
impedance termination for small antennas: for a given noise
figure, the noise measure of the amplifier is better because the
available gain is larger. For an 0.2 dipole at 900 MHz, however, the input capacitance must be less than 1 pF in order for
the input impedance to be substantially larger than the antenna
impedance, which is very low compared to the input capacitances of off-the-shelf op-amps.
Eliminating the matching network between the antenna and
amplifier leads to a second benefit, a much flatter frequency
response. This can be seen from the no matching network
curve in Figure 3. From Figure 3, however, it can be seen that
the SNR obtained with a direct connection between the antenna
and amplifier is much smaller than would be achieved with a
better matching condition. This indicates a major obstacle to
the use of small antennas with high impedance amplifiers. If
there were no way to increase the realized SNR, then there is
little benefit in using high impedance terminations. There are
other ways to achieve broadband performance at the cost of
SNR, such as simply introducing loss into the matching network. In the next section, we consider the possibility of tuning
the amplifier noise parameters to increase the SNR given the
antenna characteristics.

In order to provide for a fair comparison between different

amplifiers, we will consider the minimum equivalent temperature Tmin to be fixed. We will also constrain the magnitude
of the voltage/current correlation coefficient c, considering that
it is likely not possible to realize an amplifier with completely
correlated voltage and current noise. Perhaps the most significant liberty we will take is in the phase of the correlation coefficient. Typically, transistors have an inductive correlation
admittance, so that Yc has positive imaginary part, but we will
allow Yc to take on a negative imaginary part (corresponding to
a capacitive optimal source reactance). We will ignore the frequency dependence of the noise parameters, both in the sense
of neglecting the natural frequency dependence of physical device models as well as not exploiting the possibility of shaping
the frequency dependence to achieve higher bandwidths.
To facilitate application of these constraints, the equivalent
amplifier noise temperature can be expressed as

1  2
v + 2|c||Zr |d cos(c + Zr ) + |Zr |2 d2 /vn2
4Rr kb n
(11)

where d = vn in = 2kb Tmin /( 1 c2i + cr ) will be held
constant in order to maintain a constant Tmin . Minimizing this
expression with respect to vn2 leads to
Tn =

vn2 = |Zr |d

(12)

With this choice for vn2 , the amplifier noise temperature is

Tn =

|Zr |d
[1 + |c| cos(c + Zr )]
2Rr kb

(13)

From this expression, it can be seen that the system noise performance is poor for a reactive antenna with low radiation resistance, due to the leading factor of |Zr |/Rr , but we will use the
For size-constrained antennas, the standard approach to im- remaining degree of freedom in the phase of c to make the noise
proving SNR performance is to redesign the antenna to in- temperature as small as possible. Given a fixed value
for |c|, the
crease the small radiation resistance Rr and to decrease the phase is determined by the requirement that r = 1 c2i + cr

3.1

Noise Reduction

be constant in order to leave the minimum noise temperature

constant. This leads to
2

|c| + r2 1
c = cos1
(14)
2|c|r

Single Dipole (0.2 at 900 MHz)

30

20

SNR (dB)

where the sign is chosen such that cos(c + Zr ) is negative

for a reactive antenna input impedance Zr .

Single Dipole (0.4 at 900 MHz)

25

15

10

20

Theoretical SNR Bound

Quarter wave and reactance
No matching network
No matching network (optimized amplifier)

SNR (dB)

10

0
0

0.8

0.9
1
Frequency (GHz)

1.1

1.2

Figure 6: Comparison of SNRs for a larger dipole antenna.

10
Theoretical SNR Bound
Quarter wave and reactance
No matching network
No matching network (optimized amplifier)

20

30

0.7

0.7

0.8

0.9
1
Frequency (GHz)

1.1

1.2

the fact that while optimizing amplifier parameters may allow

relaxation of impedance matching requirements for small antennas, good performance is still easier to achieve with a larger
antenna.

Figure 5: Comparison of SNRs with optimized amplifier parameters. For this example, Tmin = 130 K and |c| = 0.9. The
3.2 Physical Implications
ratio vn /in and the phase c of the voltage/current noise correlation coefficient c are varied to minimize the amplifier noise
These results on optimizing the SNR performance of antennas
contribution.
terminated with a high impedance front end amplifier suggest
Numerical results based on this optimization procedure are that it may be possible to sidestep at least partially the Q-factor
shown in Figure 5. The amplifier minimum equivalent noise and bandwidth limitations for electrically small antennas. To
temperature is Tmin = 130 K (noise figure 1.6 dB), r = 0.5, obtain maximum power transfer from a reactive antenna to a
and |c| = 0.9. The noise parameters
resulting from

the op- front end amplifier, an impedance transformer with reactive eltimization are vn = 2.05 nV/ Hz, in = 3.50 pA/ Hz, and ements is required. Unlike input impedances, amplifier noise
c = 1.504 rad. The antenna input impedance at the design parameters like the correlation admittance Yc may not necessarcenter frequency is Zr = 8.33 j586 . The performance is ily correspond to actual impedance elements. These parameters
improved by roughly 10 dB. The noise figure of the amplifier are only indirectly related to physical reactances in the circuit.
with optimized parameters is 8.7 dB, which is not especially For a high impedance termination, this may allow satisfactory
good but may be adequate for many applications, especially in noise parameters to be realized over a broad band without inexternal noise or interference-limited environments for which troducing reactive components, thereby bypassing the fundareceiver noise is not the dominant contribution. The important mental limits on bandwidth for electrically small antennas. For
point is that the SNR has increased significantly and the system a capacitive antenna, for example, we have seen that an inducresponse remains broadband.
tive noise correlation admittance is required for optimal performance, but it may be possible using circuit design techniques to
There are various ways to change the problem to obtain betrealize this inductive characteristic without actually introducing
ter performance. If the magnitude of c is allowed to be closer to
an inductor into the circuit. It may also be possible to change
one, the SNR improvement is greater, but as noted above this
the circuit design so that the noise parameters follow the anmay not be physically realistic, at least for standard, singletenna impedance behavior over frequency, thereby increasing
transistor amplifier circuits. For an electrically large antenna,
the system bandwidth even further.
this optimization procedure results in an SNR that is very close
to optimal. Figure 6 shows results for a 0.4 dipole, which is
The considerations pose a challenge for circuit and device
electrically large but still not operating at resonance. The per- designers to optimize front end amplifiers for optimal broadformance with a standard matching network increases in band- band performance with electrically small antennas. Certainly,
width relative to the short dipole results in Figure 5, but is not constraints on amplifier design and realizable noise parameters
as broadband as the high impedance terminated case. The im- are just as fundamental as small-antenna Q-factor and bandprovement in SNR relative to the theoretical limit underscores width limits, but further exploration is needed to determine if

sufficiently high receiver SNR can be realized within these con- terconnections. That particular impedance value is associated
straints.
with power handling and loss considerations for long transmission lines which do not apply for small, low powered wireless
devices. A standard impedance is certainly valuable from a
practical point of view since it allows antenna and amplifier de4 Other Issues
signs to be decoupled, and an antenna impedance with a small
reactive component and a large radiation resistance is the ideal
Dynamic range and interference. One difficulty with a broad- situation when possible, but for ultra-small, power limited apband front end is that interference can overdrive the front end plications, the search for better performance may require dropand lead to dynamic range problems. Resonant antennas pro- ping the convenience of a standard impedance in favor of a couvide natural frequency selectivity which reduce the amplitude pled front end amplifier and antenna element design approach.
of out-of-band signals. If frequency selectivity is not present
in the front end, then the dynamic range of the system must
be large to avoid driving the amplifier into compression. For References
transient interference, adaptive front circuits could be used to
mitigate interference.
[1] T. H. Lee, The Design of CMOS Radio-Frequency Integrated Circuits. Cambridge, 1998.
On the other hand, in an interference limited environment
without higher level access control, the interference can be
treated as external noise in the SNR analysis, and amplifier [2] C. R. Poole and D. K. Paul, Optimum noise measure terminations for microwave transistor amplifiers,
noise is less important in determining the output SNR. The reIEEE
Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques,
sults shown in this paper employ a relatively low external noise
vol.
33,
pp. 12541257, Nov. 1985.
level (Text = 290 ) to emphasize the effects of amplifier noise,
but if the external noise increases, the no matching network
curves move closer to the optimal curves because the SNR is
dominated by external noise.
Transmitters. The methods in this paper apply only to the
receive side of a communication link. For transmitters, power
transfer to the antenna is a necessary requirement. An antenna
which is optimized for broadband, low noise performance using
a high impedance termination may exhibit poor performance as
a transmitter.

Conclusion

We have considered some of the issues and possible advantages

of loading an antenna with a high impedance amplifier optimized for maximum receiver output SNR. Bandwidth, available power gain, and noise performance are the major performance criteria for this study. SNR is degraded relative to an
amplifier with a standard matching condition, but with tuning
of the amplifier noise parameters, adequate noise performance
is possible for small antennas over much broader bandwidth
than is available using standard power matching concepts.
A natural extension of these ideas is to co-design the antenna
and front end amplifier to achieve even better bandwidths and
higher receiver output SNR. In this paper, we have completely
ignored the degrees of freedom available in the antenna itself,
in order to place the focus on amplifier noise performance. But
clearly it is possible to use the degrees of freedom available in
the antenna design, along with tuning of amplifier characteristics, to further improve the overall performance.
These results also suggest that the standard 50 characteristic impedance value is not optimal for antenna-amplifier in-