Design and Simulation of a Feedforward AGC Loop for Bluetooth-Low-Energy Receiver

This paper presents a design methodology and simulation for the feedforward Automatic Gain Control (AGC) Loop suitable for a Bluetooth-Low-Energy receiver. The proposed AGC loop covers a gain range from 4 dB to 64 dB which will be achieved using three gain modes; while achieving NF of 24 dB. The main building blocks of the AGC loop are variable gain amplifier, voltage control generation circuit, and peak detector. The AGC loop is implemented using 90nm CMOS Technology with a power supply of 1.2V since low-power consumption is required from the design. The AGC loop achieves a power consumption of 3 mW at the maximum gain mode and 402 μW at the minimum gain mode. The AGC loop is simulated around the three gain modes to validate that it achieves the required specifications for all gain modes.