A low voltage CMOS RF front-end for IEEE 802.11b WLAN transceiver

A low voltage CMOS RF front-end for IEEE 802.11b WLAN transceiver is presented. The problems to implement the low voltage design and the on-chip input/output impedance matching are considered, and some improved circuits are presented to overcome the problems. Especially, a single-end input, differential output double balanced mixer with an on-chip bias loop is analyzed in detail to show its advantages over other mixers. The transceiver RF front-end has been implemented in 0.18 um CMOS process, the measured results show that the Rx front-end achieves 5.23 dB noise figure, 12.7 dB power gain (50 ohm load), −18 dBm input 1 dB compression point (ICP) and −7 dBm IIP3, and the Tx front-end could output +2.1 dBm power into 50 ohm load with 23.8 dB power gain. The transceiver RF front-end draws 13.6 mA current from a supply voltage of 1.8 V in receive mode and 27.6 mA current in transmit mode. The transceiver RF front-end could satisfy the performance requirements of IEEE802.11b WLAN standard. Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 90407006 and No. 60475018.     

A 0.13 μm CMOS UWB RF Transmitter with an On‐Chip T/R Switch

This paper presents a fully integrated 0.13 μm CMOS MB‐OFDM UWB transmitter chain (mode 1). The proposed transmitter consists of a low‐pass filter, a variable gain amplifier, a voltage‐to‐current converter, an I/Q up‐mixer, a differential‐to‐single‐ended converter, a driver amplifier, and a transmit/receive (T/R) switch. The proposed T/R switch shows an insertion loss of less than 1.5 dB and a Tx/Rx port isolation of more than 27 dB over a 3 GHz to 5 GHz frequency range. All RF/analog circuits have been designed to achieve high linearity and wide bandwidth. The proposed transmitter is implemented using IBM 0.13 μm CMOS technology. The fabricated transmitter shows a ?3 dB bandwidth of 550 MHz at each sub‐band center frequency with gain flatness less than 1.5 dB. It also shows a power gain of 0.5 dB, a maximum output power level of 0 dBm, and output IP3 of +9.3 dBm. It consumes a total of 54 mA from a 1.5 V supply.     

一种基于OFDM的新型低功耗RF收发器设计

为实现低功耗信号传输,提出一种基于OFDM的IEEE 802.15.4g低功耗无线电频率（RF）收发器。该新型RF收发器电路由Tx BBA（基带模拟）、片上RF开关前端、Rx BBA及锁相环（PLL）构成,采用0.18?m CMOS技术制作,满足了IEEE 802.15.4g OFDM系统低功耗信号传输的需要。实际测试结果显示,相比传统的RF收发器,提出的RF收发器具有较低的功耗和良好的灵敏度,当电源电压为1.8 V时,Tx模式下会消耗14.7mA,Rx模式下会消耗15.7mA。     

A Single Transistor‐Level Direct‐Conversion Mixer for Low‐Voltage Low‐Power Multi‐band Radios

A CMOS direct‐conversion mixer with a single transistor‐level topology is proposed in this paper. Since the single transistor‐level topology needs smaller supply voltage than the conventional Gilbert‐cell topology, the proposed mixer structure is suitable for a low power and highly integrated RF system‐on‐a‐chip (SoC). The proposed direct‐conversion mixer is designed for the multi‐band ultra‐wideband (UWB) system covering from 3 to 7 GHz. The conversion gain and input P1dB of the mixer are about 3 dB and ?10 dBm, respectively, with multi‐band RF signals. The mixer consumes 4.3 mA under a 1.8 V supply voltage.     

A switch‐controlled multimode narrowband receiver RF front‐end

This work illustrates a flexible and convenient method to build a multimode narrowband receiver RF front‐end by means of controlled switches, switched capacitors, and switched inductors. The front‐end comprises a dual‐gain‐mode narrowband low‐noise amplifier (LNA) and a dual‐linearity‐mode mixer. A four‐mode receiver RF front‐end constructed with the dual‐gain‐mode LNA and the dual‐linearity‐mode mixer operating in frequency band range from 1800 to 2050 MHz was demonstrated with an IBM 90‐nm CMOS process. The front‐end achieves a 1/1.6 dB noise figure, 30/20 dB power gain, and 16/?10 dBm third‐order input intercept point while draws a 5.9/3.6 mA current from a 1.8‐V supply voltage at the low noise mode and high linearity mode, respectively. The proposed technique can be employed to build an intelligent mobile system.     

A monolithic 3.1-4.8 GHz MB-OFDM UWB transceiver in 0.18-μm CMOS

A monolithic RF transceiver for an MB-OFDM UWB system in 3.1-4.8 GHz is presented.The transceiver adopts direct-conversion architecture and integrates all building blocks including a gain controllable wideband LNA,a I/Q merged quadrature mixer,a fifth-order Gm-C bi-quad Chebyshev LPF/VGA,a fast-settling frequency synthesizer with a poly-phase filter,a linear broadband up-conversion quadrature modulator,an active D2S converter and a variablegain power amplifier.The ESD protected transceiver is fabricated in Jazz Semiconductor's 0.18-μm RF CMOS with an area of 6.1 mm2 and draws a total current of 221 mA from 1.8-V supply.The receiver achieves a maximum voltage gain of 68 dB with a control range of 42 dB in 6 dB/Step,noise figures of 5.5-8.8 dB for three sub-bands,and an inband/out-band IIP3 better than-4 dBm/+9 dBm.The transmitter achieves an output power ranging from-10.7 to-3dBm with gain control,an output P1dB better than-7.7 dBm,a sideband rejection about 32.4 dBc,and LO suppression of 31.1 dBc.The hopping time among sub-bands is less than 2.05 ns.     

用于IEEE802．11b／g WLAN直接下变频接收机的射频前端设计

介绍了一种应用于IEEE802．11b／g无线局域网接收机射频前端的设计。基于直接下变频的系统架构。接收机集成了低噪声放大器、I／Q下变频器、去直流偏移滤波器、基带放大器和信道选择滤波器。电路采用TSMC0．18μm CMOS工艺设计,工作在2．4GHz ISM（工业、科学和医疗）频段,实现的低噪声放大器噪声系数为0．84dB,增益为16dB,S11低于-15dB,功耗为13mW;I／Q下变频器电压增益为2dB,输入1dB压缩点为-1 dBm,噪声系数为13dB,功耗低于10mw。整个接收机射频前端仿真得到的噪声系数为3．5dB,IIP3为-8dBm,IP2大于30dBm,电压增益为31dB,功耗为32mW。     

470-MHz–698-MHz IEEE 802.15.4m Compliant RF CMOS Transceiver

This paper proposes an IEEE 802.15.4m compliant TV white-space orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (TVWS)-(OFDM) radio frequency (RF) transceiver that can be adopted in advanced metering infrastructures, universal remote controllers, smart factories, consumer electronics, and other areas. The proposed TVWS-OFDM RF transceiver consists of a receiver, a transmitter, a 25% duty-cycle local oscillator generator, and a delta-sigma fractional-N phase-locked loop. In the TV band from 470 MHz to 698 MHz, the highly linear RF transmitter protects the occupied TV signals, and the high-Q filtering RF receiver is tolerable to in-band interferers as strong as −20 dBm at a 3-MHz offset. The proposed TVWS-OFDM RF transceiver is fabricated using a 0.13-μm CMOS process, and consumes 47 mA in the Tx mode and 35 mA in the Rx mode. The fabricated chip shows a Tx average power of 0 dBm with an error-vector-magnitude of < 3%, and a sensitivity level of −103 dBm with a packet-error-rate of < 3%. Using the implemented TVWS-OFDM modules, a public demonstration of electricity metering was successfully carried out.     

一种用于900MHz射频识别(RFID)读写器芯片的1.8VCMOS直接变频接收机

设计了针对解决900MHz RFID读写器收发机芯片中本地载波干扰问题而优化的直接变频接收机,并在0.18μm 1P6M混合信号CMOS工艺上实现验证.设计中使用了一种串联反馈结构的基带放大器以达到同时实现无源混频器输出缓冲,直流消除以及信号放大的功能.实际测量显示,该接收机的输入1dB压缩点为-4dBm,当中频信号解调信噪比要求为10dB时,可达到的灵敏度为-70dBm.该接收机与整个收发机集成在同一块芯片中,使用1.8V电源电压,工作时静态电流为90mA.     

A single-chip tri-band (2100, 1900, 850/800 MHz) WCDMA/HSDPA cellular transceiver

This paper describes the design and performance of the first tri-band (2100, 1900, 800/850 MHz) single-chip 3G cellular transceiver IC for worldwide use. The transceiver has been designed to meet all narrowband blocker, newly proposed Adjacent Channel II, and Category 10 HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) requirements. The design is part of a reconfigurable reference platform for multi-band, multi-mode (GSM/EDGE + WCDMA) radios. The zero-IF receiver is comprised of a novel multi-band quadrature mixer, seventh-order baseband filtering, and a novel DC offset correction scheme, which exhibits no settling time or peak switching transients after gain steps. The receiver lineup is designed to optimize HSDPA throughput and minimize sensitivity to analog baseband filter bandwidth variations. The direct-launch transmitter is made up of a third-order baseband filter, an I/Q modulator with variable gain, an integrated transformer, an RF variable gain amplifier, and a power amplifier driver. At +9.5-dBm output power, the transmitter achieves an error vector magnitude (EVM) of 4%. Fractional-N synthesizers achieve fast lock times of 50 /spl mu/s (150 /spl mu/s) within 20 ppm (0.1 ppm). Automatically calibrated, integrated VCOs achieve a 1.6-GHz tuning range to facilitate coverage over all six 3GPP frequency bands. The IC draws 34 mA in receive (18-mA receiver plus 16-mA fractional-N PLL/VCO) and 50 to 62 mA in transmit (-76 dBm to +9.5 dBm), including PLL/VCO, using a 2.775-V supply voltage. The RF transceiver is integrated with the baseband signal processing and associated passives in a 165-pad package, resulting in the first tri-band 3G radio transceiver with a digital interface which requires no external components.     

A 2.5-GHz BiCMOS transceiver for wireless LAN's

A BiCMOS transceiver intended for spread spectrum applications in the 2.4-2.5 GHz band is described. The IC contains a low-noise amplifier (LNA) with 14 dB gain and 2.2 dB NF in its high-gain mode, a downconversion mixer with 8 dB gain and 11 dB NF, and an upconversion mixer with 17 dB gain and P_{-1 dB} of +3 dBm out. An on-chip local oscillator (LO) buffer accepts LO drive of -10 dBm with a half-frequency option allowed by an on-chip frequency doubler. Power consumption from a single 3-V supply is 34 mA in transmit mode, 21 mA in receive mode, and 1 μA in sleep mode     

A low power direct conversion receiver RF front-end with high in-band IIP2/IIP3 and low 1/f noise

A low power direct-conversion receiver RF front-end with high in-band IIP2/IIP3 and low 1/f noise is presented. The front-end includes the differential low noise amplifier, the down-conversion mixer, the LO buffer, the IF buffer and the bandgap reference. A modified common source topology is used as the input stages of the down-conversion mixer (and the LNA) to improve IIP2 of the receiver RF front-end while maintaining high IIP3. A shunt LC network is inserted into the common-source node of the switching pairs in the down-conversion mixer to absorb the parasitic capacitance and thus improve IIP2 and lower down the 1/f noise of the down-conversion mixer. The direct-conversion receiver RF front-end has been implemented in 0.18 μm CMOS process. The measured results show that the 2 GHz receiver RF front-end achieves +33 dBm in-band IIP2, 21 dB power gain, 6.2 dB NF and −2.3 dBm in-band IIP3 while only drawing 6.7 mA current from a 1.8 V power supply.     

Low‐Power Direct Conversion Transceiver for 915 MHz Band IEEE 802.15.4b Standard Based on 0.18 μm CMOS Technology

This paper presents the experimental results of a low‐power low‐cost RF transceiver for the 915 MHz band IEEE 802.15.4b standard. Low power and low cost are achieved by optimizing the transceiver architecture and circuit design techniques. The proposed transceiver shares the analog baseband section for both receive and transmit modes to reduce the silicon area. The RF transceiver consumes 11.2 mA in receive mode and 22.5 mA in transmit mode under a supply voltage of 1.8 V, in which 5 mA of quadrature voltage controlled oscillator is included. The proposed transceiver is implemented in a 0.18 μm CMOS process and occupies 10 mm² of silicon area.     

A Dual‐Mode 2.4‐GHz CMOS Transceiver for High‐Rate Bluetooth Systems

This paper reports on our development of a dual‐mode transceiver for a CMOS high‐rate Bluetooth system‐on‐chip solution. The transceiver includes most of the radio building blocks such as an active complex filter, a Gaussian frequency shift keying (GFSK) demodulator, a variable gain amplifier (VGA), a dc offset cancellation circuit, a quadrature local oscillator (LO) generator, and an RF front‐end. It is designed for both the normal‐rate Bluetooth with an instantaneous bit rate of 1 Mb/s and the high‐rate Bluetooth of up to 12 Mb/s. The receiver employs a dualconversion combined with a baseband dual‐path architecture for resolving many problems such as flicker noise, dc offset, and power consumption of the dual‐mode system. The transceiver requires none of the external image‐rejection and intermediate frequency (IF) channel filters by using an LO of 1.6 GHz and the fifth order on‐chip filters. The chip is fabricated on a 6.5‐mm² die using a standard 0.25‐μm CMOS technology. Experimental results show an in‐band image‐rejection ratio of 40 dB, an IIP3 of ?5 dBm, and a sensitivity of ?77 dBm for the Bluetooth mode when the losses from the external components are compensated. It consumes 42 mA in receive π/4‐diffrential quadrature phase‐shift keying (π/4‐DQPSK) mode of 8 Mb/s, 35 mA in receive GFSK mode of 1 Mb/s, and 32 mA in transmit mode from a 2.5‐V supply. These results indicate that the architecture and circuits are adaptable to the implementation of a low‐cost, multi‐mode, high‐speed wireless personal area network.     

A 184 mW Fully Integrated DVB-H Tuner With a Linearized Variable Gain LNA and Quadrature Mixers Using Cross-Coupled Transconductor

A fully integrated direct conversion DVB-H tuner is realized in a 0.5-mum SiGe BiCMOS technology. To meet the stringent linearity requirement while keeping low power consumption, novel linearization techniques for a variable-gain low-noise amplifier (VG-LNA) and a mixer are proposed. The proposed linearized VG-LNA has a variable gain range of over 50 dB, noise figure of less than 2.6 dB over the frequency range from 200 to 1000 MHz, and IIP3 of more than -10 dBm at a current consumption of 2.1 mA. The quadrature mixer with the proposed linearization technique achieves OIP3 of more than 25 dBm at a current consumption of 5 mA. In addition, a new offset-cancel feedback is introduced for the baseband block of a direct conversion receiver, which keeps the high-pass cutoff frequency independent of the baseband VGA gain. The fabricated tuner IC satisfies all the DVB-H requirements at a power consumption of 184 mW     

A 2.4-GHz CMOS transceiver for Bluetooth

A fully integrated CMOS transceiver tuned to 2.4 GHz consumes 46 mA in receive mode and 47 mA in transmit mode from a 2.7-V supply. It includes all the receive and transmit building blocks, such as frequency synthesizer, voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), power amplifier, and demodulator. The receiver uses a low-IF architecture for higher level of integration and lower power consumption. It achieves a sensitivity of -82 dBm at 0.1% BER, and a third-order input intercept point (IIP3) of -7 dBm. The direct-conversion transmitter delivers a GFSK modulated spectrum at a nominal output power of 4 dBm. The on-chip voltage controlled oscillator has a close-in phase-noise of -120 dBc/Hz at 3-MHz offset     

A Fully Integrated 2.4-GHz IEEE 802.15.4-Compliant Transceiver for ZigBee™ Applications

A single-chip 2.4-GHz CMOS radio transceiver with integrated baseband processing according to the IEEE 802.15.4 standard is presented. The transceiver consumes 14.7 mA in receive mode and 15.7 mA in transmit mode. The receiver uses a low-IF topology for high sensitivity and low power consumption, and achieves -101 dBm sensitivity for 1% packet error rate. The transmitter topology is based on a PLL direct-modulation scheme. Optimizations of architecture and circuit design level in order to reduce the transceiver power consumption are described. Special attention is paid to the RF front-end design which consumes 2.4mA in receive mode and features bidirectional RF pins. The 5.77 mm² chip is implemented in a standard 0.18-mum CMOS technology. The transmitter delivers +3 dBm into the 100-Omega differential antenna port     

433MHz ASK接收机射频前端电路设计

设计了一款应用在433MHz ASK接收机中的射频前端电路。在考虑了封装以及ESD保护电路的寄生效应的同时,从噪声、匹配、增益和线性度等方面详细讨论了低噪声放大器和下混频器的电路设计。采用0.18μm CMOS工艺,在1.8V的电源电压下射频前端电路消耗电流10.09 mA。主要的测试结果如下:低噪声放大器的噪声系数、增益、输入P1dB压缩点分别为1.35 dB、17.43 dB、-8.90dBm;下混频器的噪声系数、电压增益、输入P1dB压缩点分别为7.57dB、10.35dB、-4.83dBm。     

A Single-Chip CMOS Transceiver for UHF Mobile RFID Reader

This paper describes a single-antenna low-power single-chip radio frequency identification (RFID) reader for mobile phone applications. The reader integrates an RF transceiver, data converters, a digital baseband modem, an MPU, memory, and host interfaces. The direct conversion RF receiver architecture with the highly linear RF front-end circuit and DC offset cancellation circuit is used to give good immunity to the large transmitter leakage. It is suitable for a mobile phone reader with single-antenna architecture and low-power reader solution. The transmitter is implemented in the direct I/Q up-conversion architecture. The frequency synthesizer based on a fractional-N phase-locked-loop topology offering 900 MHz quadrature LO signals is also integrated with the RF transceiver. The reader is fabricated in a 0.18 mum CMOS technology, and its die size is 4.5 mm times 5.3 mm including electrostatic discharge I/O pads. The reader consumes a total current of 89 mA apart from the external power amplifier with 1.8 V supply voltage. It achieves an 8 dBm P1dB, an 18.5 dBm IIP3, and a maximum transmitter output power of 4 dBm.     

AlGaN/GaN Based Ultra‐wideband 15‐W High‐Power Amplifier with Improved Return Loss

An ultra‐wideband microwave monolithic integrated circuit high‐power amplifier with excellent input and output return losses for phased array jammer applications was designed and fabricated using commercial 0.25‐μm AlGaN/GaN technology. To improve the wideband performance, resistive matching and a shunt feedback circuit are employed. The input and output return losses were improved through a balanced design using Lange‐couplers. This three‐stage amplifier can achieve an average saturated output power of 15 W, and power added efficiency of 10% to 28%, in a continuous wave operation over a frequency range of 6 GHz to 18 GHz. The input and output return losses were demonstrated to be lower than over a wide frequency range.