A novel wide-range CMOS variable gain amplifier （VGA） topology is presented. The proposed VGA is composed of a variable transconductor and a novel variable output resistor and can offer a high gain variation range of 80dB while using a single variable-gain stage. Temperature-compensation and decibel-linear gain characteristic are achieved by using a control circuit that provides a gain error lower than ±1.5dB over the full temperature and gain ranges. Realized in 0.25μm CMOS technology, a prototype of the proposed VGA provides a total gain range of 64.5dB with 55.6dB-linear range,a P-1dB varying from - 17.5 to 11.5dBm,and a 3dB-bandwith varying from 65 to 860MHz while dissipating 16.5mW from a 2.5V supply voltage.
