A Receiver Architecture for Dual-Antenna Systems

The signals received by two antennas can be processed by a single time-shared receiver but only in the absence of interferers and channel-select filters. A low-IF receiver architecture is introduced that translates two antenna signals to positive and negative frequencies in the complex domain, reducing the number of baseband A/D converters by a factor of two. A dual-receiver prototype designed and fabricated in 0.18-mum CMOS technology provides a sensitivity of -72 dBm with an EVM of -25 dB for 64 QAM signals while drawing 60.2 mW from a 1.8-V supply.     

A CMOS highly linear channel-select filter for 3G multistandardintegrated wireless receivers

A new approach for designing digitally programmable CMOS integrated baseband filters is presented. The proposed technique provides a systematic method for designing filters exhibiting high linearity and low power. A sixth-order Butterworth low-pass filter with 14-bit bandwidth tuning range is designed for implementing the baseband channel-select filter in an integrated multistandard wireless receiver. The filter consumes a current of 2.25 mA from a 2.7-V supply and occupies an area of 1.25 mm² in a 0.5-μm chip. The proposed filter design achieves high spurious free dynamic ranges (SFDRs) of 92 dB for PDC (IS-54), 89 dB for GSM, 84 dB for IS-95, and 80 dB for WCDMA     

A new generation of global wireless compatibility

The expanding growth of wireless communications has led to the proliferation of different standards. The highly competitive market demands low-cost, low-power, and small form-factor devices. This calls for the development of a single-chip, third-generation (3G) receiver capable of adapting to the various communications standards in a low-cost CMOS technology. However, fully integrated receiver architectures require the elimination of discrete high-Q image rejection and IF filters. Thus, the received signal is down-converted to baseband without channel filtering, which most frequently results in the presence of strong adjacent channel blockers along with the desired signal. Therefore, it is required from the baseband filter design to exhibit a high-dynamic range, a programmable bandwidth to accommodate different standards, precise tuning to select the desired channel within a standard, low power, and a small chip area. This article discusses the 3G wireless systems with a focus on the design of a reconfigurable baseband chain that precedes the ADC of a multistandard fully integrated wireless receiver. The baseband chain is adapted to accommodate the GSM, IS-95, and wideband CDMA wireless standards     

Multistandard Analogue Baseband Filters for Software-Defined and Cognitive Radio Receivers

Analogue baseband filters are an important circuit for channel select and anti-aliasing in wireless and mobile communication systems. For software and cognitive radio, they must be widely tunable and reconfigurable to accommodate existing, emerging, and future wireless and mobile standards. In this paper, design considerations of tunable and programmable filters for highly integrated multistandard receivers are presented. General background of multistandard integrated receivers and design challenges of analogue baseband filters are given. Circuit techniques for baseband filter design including the widely used active-RC and Gm-C circuits are described. Filter structures and design methods for high-order baseband filters are reviewed. On-chip tuning issues and methods are discussed. Results and performances of some published design examples are summarized. Future directions are also pointed out.     

A single-chip 900 MHz CMOS receiver front-end with a highperformance low-IF topology

An analog receiver front end chip realized in a 0.7 μm CMOS technology is presented. It uses a new, high performance, downconverter topology, called double quadrature downconverter, that achieves a phase accuracy of less than 0.3° in a large passband around 900 MHz, without requiring any external component or any tuning or trimming. A high performance low-IF receiver topology is developed with this double quadrature downconverter. The proposed low-IF receiver combines the advantages of both the classical IF receiver and the zero IF receiver: an excellent performance and a very high degree of integration. In this way, it becomes possible to realize a true fully integrated receiver front-end that does not require a single external component and which is, different from the zero-IF receiver, nonetheless totally insensitive to parasitic baseband signals and self-mixing products     

A 2.4-GHz ISM-Band Sliding-IF Receiver With a 0.5-V Supply

We report an ultra-low-voltage RF receiver for applications in the 2.4 GHz band, designed in a 90 nm CMOS technology. The sliding-IF receiver prototype includes an LNA, an image-reject LC filter with single-ended to differential conversion, an RF mixer, an LC IF filter, a quadrature IF mixer, RF and IF LO buffers, and an I/Q baseband section with a VGA and a low-pass channel-select filter in each path, all integrated on-chip. It has a programmable overall gain of 30 dB, noise figure of 18 dB, out-of-channel IIP3 of -22 dBm. The 3.4 mm² chip consumes 8.5 mW from a 0.5 V supply.     

A CMOS 5 nV$/surd $Hz 74-dB-Gain-Range 82-dB-DR Multistandard Baseband Chain for Bluetooth, UMTS, and WLAN

An analog baseband chain for a multistandard (Bluetooth, WCDMA/UMTS, and WLAN) reconfigurable receiver in a 0.13 mum CMOS occupying 1.65 mm² is presented. The circuit consists of an open-loop programmable-gain amplifier (PGA1), an active-G_m-RC low-pass filter (LPF), and a closed-loop programmable-gain amplifier (PGA2). The chain gain can be programmed in the range -6 divide 68 dB, while the input-referred noise (IRN) is 5 nV/radicHz. A dynamic range (DR) larger than 82 dB is achieved for a 1% total harmonic distortion (THD). The current consumption is minimized and adjusted for the different operation conditions, down to 11 mA for the full chain.     

Relationship between ADC performance and requirements of digital-IF receiver for WCDMA base-station

The recent rapid development of digital wireless systems has led to the need for multistandard, multichannel radiofrequency (RF) transceivers. The paper presents the relationship between the performance of a bandpass-sampling analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and the requirements of a digital intermediate-frequency receiver for a wideband code-division multiple-access (WCDMA) base-station. As such, the ADC signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), the derivation of the receiver sensitivity using the SNR/spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) of the ADC, the effect of the ADC clock jitter and receiver linearity, plus the relationship between the receiver IF and the ADC sampling frequency are all analyzed. As a result, when a WCDMA base-station receiver has a data rate of 12.2 kbps, bit error rate (BER) of 0.001, and channel index, k, of 5 (sampling frequency of 122.88 MHz and IF of 92.16 MHz), the performance of a bandpass-sampling ADC was analytically determined to require a resolution of 14 bits or more, SNR of 66.6 dB or more, SFDR of 86.5 dBc or more, and total jitter of 0.2 ps or less, including internal ADC jitters and clock jitters.     

Digitally tuned analogue integrated filters using R-2R ladder

A new technique for designing digitally tuned frequency selective analogue integrated circuits is proposed. The technique incorporates the R-2R ladder as a circuit element into the circuit design to provide precise frequency characteristics that can be tuned over a wide range. Two filters are described to illustrate the proposed approach. The proposed filters are used to implement the lowpass channel-select filter of a multi-standard direct conversion wireless receiver and the bandpass filter of a low IF frequency-hopping receiver     

A Novel Receiver Architecture for DBF Antenna Array

The developments of the high speed analog to digital converters （ADC） and advanced digital signal processors （DSP） make the smart antenna with digital beamforming （DBF） a reality. In conventional M-elements array antenna system, each element has its own receiving channel and ADCs. In this paper, a novel smart antenna receiver with digital beamforming is proposed. The essential idea is to realize the digital beamforming receiver based on bandpass sampling of multiple distinct intermediate frequency （IF） signals. The proposed system reduces receiver hardware from M IF channels and 2M ADCs to one IF channel and one ADC using a heterodyne radio frequency （RF） circuitry and a multiple bandpass sampling digital receiver. In this scheme, the sampling rate of the ADC is much higher than the summation of the M times of the signal bandwidth. The local oscillator produces different local frequency for each RF channel The receiver architecture is presented in detail, and the simulation of bandpass sampling of multiple signals and digital down conversion to baseband is given. The principle analysis and simulation results indicate the effectiveness of the new proposed receiver.     

A Fully Integrated 0.13 μm CMOS Low-IF DBS Satellite Tuner Using Automatic Signal-Path Gain and Bandwidth Calibration

This paper presents the first low-IF fully integrated receiver for DBS satellite TV applications realized in 0.13 mum CMOS. A wideband ring oscillator based frequency synthesizer having a large frequency step was used to downconvert a cluster of channels to a coarsely defined low-IF frequency, while the second downconversion to baseband was performed in the digital domain. Eliminating the oscillator inductors reduced the parasitic magnetic coupling from the digital core, allowing a single-chip integration of the sensitive tuner and the noisy digital demodulator. A significant die area reduction was achieved by using a single oscillator to cover the entire satellite TV spectrum, while a noise attenuator was cascaded with the PLL loop filter to reduce the equivalent tuning gain. The low-IF architecture allowed a discrete-step AGC that improves both tuner noise and linearity performance. Tuner gain and IF corner frequency were calibrated using replica ring oscillators that are tuned up to the onset of oscillations. The tuner specifications include: 90 dB gain range, 9 dB noise figure at max gain, +25 dBm IIP3 at min gain, 1.3degrms integrated phase noise, les50 dBc spurs, 0.7 W power consumption from dual 1.8/3.3-V supplies, and 1.8times1.2 mm ² die area     

A reconfigurable low-pass/high-pass \varDelta \varSigma ADC suited for a zero-IF/low-IF receiver

This paper presents the design of a reconfigurable delta sigma analog to digital converter. Its main degree of freedom is the choice of the noise shaping between low-pass and high-pass. Thanks to this reconfiguration parameter, the converter takes full advantage of both noise shapings and employs the most suited architecture depending on the received standard. Moreover, the low-pass/high-pass reconfiguration makes the analog-to-digital converter compliant for both the low-IF and the zero-IF receiver architectures. The paper also presents a novel reconfigurable dynamic element matching technique which efficiently addresses the digital to analog converter mismatch for both the high-pass and the low-pass delta sigma modulators. The sampling frequency and the quantizer number of bits are likewise adjustable. A GSM/UMTS compliant delta sigma analog to digital converter including reconfigurable decimator has been designed in a 1.2 V 65 nm CMOS process. The high-pass modulator is employed in a low-IF receiver for the GSM mode to profit from its robustness against offset and 1/f noise. For the UMTS mode, the low-pass modulator is employed in a zero-IF receiver because of its lower sensitivity to clock jitter.     

A CMOS TV tuner/demodulator IC with digital image rejection

Superheterodyne TV tuners have been implemented in discrete forms using tunable RF and SAW IF filters. Integrating TV tuners in CMOS technology without them is a challenging task to cope with technical issues such as harmonic mixing and image. The image rejection in low- or zero-IF systems has been limited to 30-40 dB by analog imperfections such as I/Q path gain and phase mismatches. A single-chip low-IF TV tuner solution is proposed so that the image can be suppressed digitally using an image cancellation technique based on a complex one-tap LMS signal decorrelation algorithm. Programmable digital filtering and video/sound demodulation make a multistandard TV tuner feasible in the 48-860 MHz VHF/UHF band. The chip has a maximum gain of 63 dB and an input automatic gain control (AGC) range from -15 to 25 dB with 0.85-dB steps. It achieves an image and IF rejection of 60 dB, a peak carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR) of 55 dB, and a peak sound signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 44 dB without frequency modulation (FM) de-emphasis. The prototype occupies 6/spl times/6 mm/sup 2/ in 0.25-/spl mu/m CMOS and consumes 1 W at 2.5 V.     

CMOS digitally programmable filter for multi-standard wirelessreceivers

The technique exhibits the wide frequency range of the transconductance amplifier filters while offering improved linearity. It utilises digitally controlled current followers to provide precise frequency characteristics that can be tuned over a wide range. A digitally tuned lowpass filter is designed for implementing the channel-select filter in the baseband chain of a multi-standard CMOS wireless receiver. Simulation and experimental results obtained from a 1.2 μm chip show a programmable frequency response covering the IS-54, GSM, IS-95 and WCDMA wireless standards     

Towards Software Defined Radios Using Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable Hardware

Mobile wireless terminals tend to become multimode wireless communication devices. Furthermore, these devices become adaptive. Heterogeneous reconfigurable hardware provides the flexibility, performance, and efficiency to enable the implementation of these devices. The implementation of a wideband code division multiple access and an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing receiver using the same coarse-grained reconfigurable MONTIUM tile processor is discussed. Besides the baseband processing part of the receiver, the same reconfigurable processor has also been used to implement Viterbi and Turbo channel decoders.     

Design and Compliance Testing of a SiGe WCDMA Receiver IC With Integrated Analog Baseband

A 2.7-3.3 V 32-mA SiGe direct-conversion wide-band code division multiple access (WCDMA) receiver IC integrating the RF front-end and analog baseband on a single chip has been completed and measured. Analog performance specifications for the design were driven by the 3GPP specifications. To close the loop from 3GPP specifications to IC design specifications to hardware performance results, a subset of compliance tests for both the analog as well as the digital 3GPP specifications was performed. The IC design includes a bypassable low-noise amplifier (LNA), a quadrature direct-downconverter, an automatically tuned channel-select filter, wide dynamic-range baseband amplifiers, and a serial digital interface. Power-saving modes allow the LNA to be powered down when the input signal is sufficiently large, reducing current consumption to 23 mA. In addition, the entire Q-channel signal path can be optionally powered down during control-channel monitoring, further reducing current draw to 17 mA nominal. The IC showed full compliance with the static channel 3GPP specification tests performed, including all analog/RF compliance tests and a set of DPCH/spl I.bar/Ec/Ior sensitivity tests from 12.2 through 384 kb/s as measured with a software baseband processor.     

A crystal-tolerant fully integrated CMOS low-IF dual-band GPS receiver

This paper presents the design of a dual-band L1/L2 GPS receiver, that can be easily integrated in portable devices (mainly GSM mobile phones). For the ease of integration with GSM wireless systems the receiver can tolerate most of the common GSM crystals, besides the GPS crystals, this will eliminate the need to use another crystal on board. A new frequency plan is presented to satisfy this requirement. A low-IF receiver architecture is used for dual-band operation with analog on-chip image rejection. The receiver is composed of a narrow-band LNA for each band, dual down-conversion mixers, a variable-gain channel filter, a 2-bit analog-to-digital converter, and a fully integrated frequency synthesizer including an on-chip VCO and loop filter. The complex filter can accept IF frequency variation of 10% around 4.092 MHz which allows the use of the commonly used 10/13/26 MHz GSM crystals and all the GPS crystals. The synthesizer generates the LO signals for both L1/L2 bands with an average phase noise of −95 dBc/Hz. The receiver exhibits maximum gain of 112 and 115 dB, noise figures of 4 and 3.6 dB, and input compression points of −76 and −79 dBm for L1 and L2, respectively. An on-chip variable-gain channel filter provides IF image rejection greater than 25 dB and gain control range over 80 dB. The receiver is designed in 0.13 μm CMOS technology and consumes 18 mW from a 1.2-V supply.     

A highly digitized multimode receiver architecture for 3G mobiles

A highly digitized multimode receiver architecture is described. It is configured primarily for the Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) and Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) modes, but has the potential to operate in other modes such as cdma2000 as well. The receiver uses a single down conversion to mix the RF signal to a zero intermediate frequency (IF) for UMTS mode and a low IF for GSM. It uses a reconfigurable analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to digitize the IF signals as early as possible and to transfer most of the channel filtering into the digital domain. Only a minimum of automatic gain control (AGC) is employed. The architecture aims to maximize reuse of common hardware and to make significant gains in terms of design costs, size, and adaptability. System simulations confirm the feasibility and performance of the new concept.     

A 19-mW 2.6-mm/sup 2/ L1/L2 dual-band CMOS GPS receiver

This paper presents the design and implementation of an L1/L2 dual-band global positioning system (GPS) receiver. Dual-conversion with a low-IF architecture was used for dual-band operation. The receiver is composed of an RF preamplifier, down-conversion mixers, a variable-gain channel filter, a 2-bit analog-to-digital converter, and the full phase-locked-loop synthesizer including an on-chip voltage controlled oscillator. Fabricated in a 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS technology, the receiver exhibits maximum gain of 95 dB and noise figures of 8.5 and 7.5 dB for L1 and L2, respectively. An on-chip variable-gain channel filter provides IF image rejection of 20 dB and gain control range over 60 dB. The receiver consumes 19 mW from a 1.8-V supply while occupying a 2.6-mm/sup 2/ die area including the ESD I/O pads.     

A 1.8-V operation RF CMOS transceiver for 2.4-GHz-band GFSK applications

This paper describes a single-chip RF transceiver LSI for 2.4-GHz-band Gaussian frequency shift-keying applications, such as Bluetooth. This chip uses a 0.18-/spl mu/m bulk CMOS process for lower current consumption. The LSI consists of almost all the required RF and IF building blocks: a transmit/receive antenna switch, a power amplifier, a low noise amplifier, an image rejection mixer, channel-selection filters, a limiter, a received signal strength indicator, a frequency discriminator, a voltage controlled oscillator, and a phase-locked loop synthesizer. The bandpass filter for channel selection was difficult to achieve since it operates at a low supply voltage. However, because large interference is roughly rejected at the output of the image rejection mixer and a wide-input-range bandpass filter with an optimized input bias is realized, the transceiver can operate at a supply voltage of 1.8 V. In the IF section, we adopted a circuit design using the minimum number of passive elements, resistors and capacitors, for a lower chip area of 10.2 mm/sup 2/.