A 0.18μm CMOS gain-switched LNA and mixer with large dynamic range

A 2.4GHz 0.18μm CMOS gain-switched single-end Low Noise Amplifier （LNA） and a passive mixer with no external balun for near-zero-IF （Intermediate Frequency）/RF （Radio Frequency） applications are described. The LNA, fabricated in the 0.18μm 1P6M CMOS technology, adopts a gain-switched technique to increase the linearity and enlarge the dynamic range. The mixer is an IQ-based passive topology. Measurements of the CMOS chip are performed on the FR-4 PCB and the input is matched to 50Ω. Combining LNA and mixer, the front-end measured performances in high gain state are： -15dB of Sll, 18.5dB of voltage gain, 4.6dB of noise figure, 15dBm of IIP3, 85dBm to -10dBm dynamic range. The full circuit drains 6mA from a 1.8V supply.     

Design and analysis of an energy-efficient O-QPSK coherent IR-UWB transceiver with a 0.52° RMS phase-noise fractional synthesizer

This paper explores an energy-efficient pulsed ultra-wideband (UWB) radio-frequency (RF) front-end chip fabricated in 0.18-μm CMOS technology,including a transmitter,receiver,and fractional synthesizer.The transmitter adopts a digital offset quadrature phase-shift keying (O-QPSK) modulator and passive direct-phase multiplexing technology,which are energy-and hardware-efficient,to enhance the data rate for a given spectrum.A passive mixer and a capacitor cross-coupled (CCC) source-follower driving amplifier (DA) are also designed for the transmitter to further reduce the low power consumption.For the receiver,a power-aware low-noise amplifier (LNA) and a quadrature mixer are applied.The LNA adopts a CCC boost common-gate amplifier as the input stage,and its current is reused for the second stage to save power.The mixer uses a shared amplification stage for the following passive IQ mixer.Phase noise suppression of the phase-locked loop (PLL) is achieved by utilizing an even-harmonics-nulled series-coupled quadrature oscillator (QVCO) and an in-band noise-aware charge pump (CP) design.The transceiver achieves a measured data rate of 0.8 Gbps with power consumption of 16 mW and 31.5 mW for the transmitter and the receiver,respectively.The optimized integrated phase noise of the PLL is 0.52° at 4.025 GHz.     

Low power high gain gain-controlled LNA and mixer for GNSS receivers Wei Binbin(魏斌斌)1, Jiang Jinguang(江金光)1,2,3*

A low power high gain gain-controlled LNA ＋ mixer for GNSS receivers is reported. The high gain LNA is realized with a current source load. Its gain-controlled ability is achieved using a programmable bias circuit. Taking advantage of the high gain LNA, a high noise figure passive mixer is adopted. With the passive mixer, low power consumption and high voltage gain of the LNA ＋ mixer are achieved. To fully investigate the performance of this circuit, comparisons between a conventional LNA ＋ mixer, a previous low power LNA ＋ mixer, and the proposed LNA ＋ mixer are presented. The circuit is implemented in 0.18 #m mixed-signal CMOS technology. A 3.8 dB noise figure, an overall 45 dB converge gain and a 10 dB controlled gain range of the two stages are measured. The chip occupies 0.24 mm2 and consumes 2 mA current under 1.8 V supply.     

A low power high gain gain-controlled LNAC＋mixer for GNSS receivers

A low power high gain gain-controlled LNAC+mixer for GNSS receivers is reported. The high gain LNA is realized with a current source load.Its gain-controlled ability is achieved using a programmable bias circuit. Taking advantage of the high gain LNA, a high noise figure passive mixer is adopted. With the passive mixer, low power consumption and high voltage gain of the LNACmixer are achieved. To fully investigate the performance of this circuit, comparisons between a conventional LNAC+mixer, a previous low power LNAC+mixer, and the proposed LNAC+mixer are presented. The circuit is implemented in 0.18 m mixed-signal CMOS technology. A 3.8 dB noise figure, an overall 45 dB converge gain and a 10 dB controlled gain range of the two stages are measured. The chip occupies 0.24 mm2and consumes 2 mA current under 1.8 V supply.     

A multi-mode multi-band RF receiver front-end for a TD-SCDMA/LTE/LTE-advanced in 0.18-μm CMOS process

正A fully integrated multi-mode multi-band directed-conversion radio frequency(RF) receiver front-end for a TD-SCDMA/LTE/LTE-advanced is presented.The front-end employs direct-conversion design,and consists of two differential tunable low noise amplifiers(LNA),a quadrature mixer,and two intermediate frequency(IF) amplifiers.The two independent tunable LNAs are used to cover all the four frequency bands,achieving sufficient low noise and high gain performance with low power consumption.Switched capacitor arrays perform a resonant frequency point calibration for the LNAs.The two LNAs are combined at the driver stage of the mixer,which employs a folded double balanced Gilbert structure,and utilizes PMOS transistors as local oscillator(LO) switches to reduce flicker noise.The front-end has three gain modes to obtain a higher dynamic range.Frequency band selection and mode of configuration is realized by an on-chip serial peripheral interface(SPI) module.The frontend is fabricated in a TSMC 0.18-μm RF CMOS process and occupies an area of 1.3 mm~2.The measured doublesideband (DSB) noise figure is below 3.5 dB and the conversion gain is over 43 dB at all of the frequency bands. The total current consumption is 31 mA from a 1.8-V supply.     

用于U波段移动数字电视的宽带大动态范围高线性度射频前端

A wideband large dynamic range and high linearity U-band RF front-end for mobile DTV is introduced,and includes a noise-cancelling low-noise amplifier(LNA),an RF programmable gain amplifier(RFPGA) and a current communicating passive mixer.The noise/distortion cancelling structure and RC post-distortion compensation are employed to improve the linearity of the LNA.An RFPGA with five stages provides large dynamic range and fine gain resolution.A simple resistor voltage network in the passive mixer decreases the gate bias voltage of the mixing transistor,and optimum linearity and symmetrical mixing is obtained at the same time.The RF front-end is implemented in a 0.25 μm CMOS process.Tests show that it achieves an ⅡP3(third-order intercept point) of –17 dBm,a conversion gain of 39 dB,and a noise figure of 5.8 dB.The RFPGA achieves a dynamic range of –36.2 to 23.5 dB with a resolution of 0.32 dB.     

A reconfigurable passive mixer for multimode multistandard receivers in 0.18 μm CMOS

This paper presents a reconfigurable quadrature passive mixer for multimode multistandard receivers. By using controllable transconductor and transimpedance-amplifier stages, the voltage conversion gain of the mixer is reconfigured according to the requirement of the selected communication standard Other characteristics such as noises figure, linearity and power consumption are also reconfigured consequently. The design concept is verified by implementing a quadrature passive mixer in 0.18 μm CMOS technology. On wafer measurement results show that, with the input radio frequency ranges from 700 MHz to 2.3 GHz, the mixer achieves a controllable voltage conversion gain from 4 to 22 dB with a step size of 6 dB. The measured maximum ⅡP3 is 8.5 dBm and the minimum noise figure is 8.0 dB. The consumed current for a single branch (I or Q) ranges from 3.1 to 5.6 mA from a 1.8 V supply voltage. The chip occupies an area of 0.71 mm² including pads.     

An ultra-broadband distributed passive gate-pumped mixer in 0.18μm CMOS

A broadband distributed passive gate-pumped mixer(DPGM) using standard 0.18μm CMOS technology is presented.By employing distributed topology,the mixer can operate at a wide frequency range.In addition,a fourth-order low pass filter is applied to improve the port-to-port isolation.This paper also analyzes the impedance match and conversion loss of the mixer,which consumes zero dc power and exhibits a measured conversion loss of 9.4—17 dB from 3 to 40 GHz with a compact size of 0.78 mm~2.The input referred 1 dB compression point is higher than 4 dBm at a fixed IF frequency of 500 MHz and RF frequency of 23 GHz,and the measured RF-to-LO, RF-to-IF and LO-to-IF isolations are better than 21,38 and 45 dB,respectively.The mixer is suitable for WLAN, UWB,Wi-Max,automotive radar systems and other millimeter-wave radio applications.     

利用简单电阻偏置网络实现的高线性度电流驱动型无源混频器

A high linearity current communicating passive mixer including the mixing cell and transimpedance amplifier(TIA) is introduced.It employs the resistor in the TIA to reduce the source voltage and the gate voltage of the mixing cell.The optimum linearity and the maximum symmetric switching operation are obtained at the same time.The mixer is implemented in a 0.25μm CMOS process.The test shows that it achieves an input third-order intercept point of 13.32 dBm,conversion gain of 5.52 dB,and a single sideband noise figure of 20 dB.     

A 0.18 μm CMOS 3-5 GHz broadband flat gain low noise amplifier

A 3-5 GHz broadband flat gain differential low noise amplifier(LNA) is designed for the impulse radio ultra-wideband(IR-UWB) system.The gain-flatten technique is adopted in this UWB LNA.Serial and shunt peaking techniques are used to achieve broadband input matching and large gain-bandwidth product(GBW).Feedback networks are introduced to further extend the bandwidth and diminish the gain fluctuations.The prototype is fabricated in the SMIC 0.18μm RF CMOS process.Measurement results show a 3-dB gain band...     

A 0.7-7 GHz wideband reconfigurable receiver RF front-end in CMOS

In this paper,a 0.7-7 GHz wideband RF receiver front-end SoC is designed using the CMOS process.The front-end is composed of two main blocks:a single-ended wideband low noise amplifier (LNA) and an inphase/quadrature (I/Q) voltage-driven passive mixer with IF amplifiers.Based on a self-biased resistive negative feedback topology,the LNA adopts shunt-peaking inductors and a gate inductor to boost the bandwidth.The passive down-conversion mixer includes two parts:passive switches and IF amplifiers.The measurement results show that the front-end works well at different LO frequencies,and this chip is reconfigurable among 0.7 to 7 GHz by tuning the LO frequency.The measured results under 2.5-GHz LO frequency show that the front-end SoC achieves a maximum conversion gain of 26 dB,a minimum noise figure (NF) of 3.2 dB,with an IF bandwidth of greater than 500 MHz.The chip area is 1.67 × 1.08 mm2.     

A wideband current-commutating passive mixer for multi-standard receivers in a 0.18 μm CMOS

This paper reports a wideband passive mixer for direct conversion multi-standard receivers.A brief comparison between current-commutating passive mixers and active mixers is presented.The effect of source and load impedance on the linearity of a mixer is analyzed.Specially,the impact of the input impedance of the transimpedance amplifier(TIA),which acts as the load impedance of a mixer,is investigated in detail.The analysis is verified by a passive mixer implemented with 0.18 m CMOS technology.The circuit is inductorless and can operate over a broad frequency range.On wafer measurements show that,with radio frequency(RF) ranges from 700 MHz to 2.3 GHz,the mixer achieves 21 dB of conversion voltage gain with a-1 dB intermediate frequency(IF) bandwidth of 10 MHz.The measured IIP3 is 9 dBm and the measured double-sideband noise figure(NF) is 10.6 dB at 10 MHz output.The chip occupies an area of 0.19 mm2 and drains a current of 5.5 mA from a 1.8 V supply.     

A 3-5 GHz BPSK transmitter for IR-UWB in 0.18μm CMOS

This paper presents a transmitter IC with BPSK modulation for an ultra-wide band system.It is based on up-conversion with a high linearity passive mixer.Unlike the traditional BPSK modulation scheme,the local oscillator (LO) is modulated by the baseband data instead of the pulse.The chip is designed and fabricated by standard 0.18μm CMOS technology.The transmitter achieves a high data rate up to 400 Mbps.The amplitude of the pulse can be adjusted by the amplitude of the LO and the bias current of the dri...     

A 0.18μm CMOS Gilbert low noise mixer with noise cancellation

正This paper presents a broadband Gilbert low noise mixer implemented with noise cancellation technique operating between 10 MHz and 0.9 GHz.The Gilbert mixer is known for its perfect port isolation and bad noise performance.The noise cancellation technique of LNA can be applied here to have a better NF.The chip is implemented in SMIC 0.18μm CMOS technology.Measurement shows that the proposed low noise mixer has a 13.7-19.5 dB voltage gain from 10 MHz to 0.9 GHz,an average noise figure of 5 dB and a minimum value of 4.3 dB.The core area is 0.6 x 0.45 mm~2.     

A 0.18 μm CMOS Gilbert low noise mixer with noise cancellation

This paper presents a broadband Gilbert low noise mixer implemented with noise cancellation technique operating between 10 MHz and 0.9 GHz. The Gilbert mixer is known for its perfect port isolation and bad noise performance. The noise cancellation technique of LNA can be applied here to have a better NF. The chip is implemented in SMIC 0.18 μm CMOS technology. Measurement shows that the proposed low noise mixer has a 13.7-19.5 dB voltage gain from 10 MHz to 0.9 GHz, an average noise figure of 5 dB and a minimum value of 4.3 dB. The core area is 0.6 × 0.45 mm².     

一种用于数字电视接收机的58dB IRR CMOS镜像抑制混频器

The design,implementation,and characterization of an image-rejection double quadrature conversion mixer based on RC asymmetric polyphase filters（PPF） are presented.The mixer consists of three sets of PPFs and a mixer core for quadrature down conversion.Two sets of PPFs are used for the quadrature generation and the other one is used for the IF signal selection to reject the unwanted image band.Realized in 0.18-μm CMOS technology as a part of the DVB-T receiver chip,the mixer exhibits a high image rejection ratio（IRR） of 58 dB,a power consumption of 11 mW,and a 1-dB gain compression point of-15 dBm.     

A wideband LNA employing gate-inductive-peaking and noise-canceling techniques in 0.18μm CMOS

正This paper presents a wideband low noise amplifier(LNA) for multi-standard radio applications.The low noise characteristic is achieved by the noise-canceling technique while the bandwidth is enhanced by gateinductive -peaking technique.High-frequency noise performance is consequently improved by the flattened gain over the entire operating frequency band.Fabricated in 0.18μm CMOS process,the LNA achieves 2.5 GHz of -3 dB bandwidth and 16 dB of gain.The gain variation is within±0.8 dB from 300 MHz to 2.2 GHz.The measured noise figure(NF) and average HP3 are 3.4 dB and -2 dBm,respectively.The proposed LNA occupies 0.39 mm2 core chip area.Operating at 1.8 V,the LNA drains a current of 11.7 mA.     

A wide band up-conversion mixer for cable television tuner

An up-conversion mixer implemented in a 0.35μm SiGe BiCMOS technology for a double conversion cable TV tuner is described, The mixer converts the 100MHz to 1000MHz band to the Intermediate Frequency of 1GHz above. The mixer meets the linearity and noise figure requirements for a TV tuner. The noise figure （IF） of 19.2-17.5dB, ldB compression of 12.1dBm, and gain of-1-0.7dB in the 900MHz band are achieved at a supply voltage of 5V. The power consumption is 47mW.     

A RF receiver frontend for SC-UWB in a 0.18-μm CMOS process

正A radio frequency(RF) receiver frontend for single-carrier ultra-wideband(SC-UWB) is presented. The front end employs direct-conversion architecture,and consists of a differential low noise amplifier(LNA),a quadrature mixer,and two intermediate frequency(IF) amplifiers.The proposed LNA employs source inductively degenerated topology.First,the expression of input impedance matching bandwidth in terms of gate-source capacitance, resonant frequency and target S_(11) is given.Then,a noise figure optimization strategy under gain and power constraints is proposed,with consideration of the integrated gate inductor,the bond-wire inductance,and its variation.The LNA utilizes two stages with different resonant frequencies to acquire flat gain over the 7.1-8.1 GHz frequency band,and has two gain modes to obtain a higher receiver dynamic range.The mixer uses a double balanced Gilbert structure.The front end is fabricated in a TSMC 0.18-/im RF CMOS process and occupies an area of 1.43 mm~2.In high and low gain modes,the measured maximum conversion gain are 42 dB and 22 dB,input 1 dB compression points are -40 dBm and -20 dBm,and S_(11) is better than -18 dB and -14.5 dB.The 3 dB IF bandwidth is more than 500 MHz.The double sideband noise figure is 4.7 dB in high gain mode.The total power consumption is 65 mW from a 1.8 V supply.     

An ultra-low-power area-efficient non-volatile memory in a 0.18 μ m single-poly CMOS process for passive RFID tags

This paper presents an ultra-low-power area-efficient non-volatile memory(NVM) in a 0.18μm singlepoly standard CMOS process for passive radio frequency identification(RFID) tags.In the memory cell,a novel low-power operation method is proposed to realize bi-directional Fowler-Nordheim tunneling during write operation. Furthermore,the cell is designed with PMOS transistors and coupling capacitors to minimize its area.In order to improve its reliability,the cell consists of double floating gates to store the data,and the 1 kbit NVM was implemented in a 0.18μm single-poly standard CMOS process.The area of the memory cell and 1 kbit memory array is 96μm~2 and 0.12 mm~2,respectively.The measured results indicate that the program/erase voltage ranges from 5 to 6 V.The power consumption of the read/write operation is 0.19μW/0.69μW at a read/write rate of (268 kb/s)/(3.0 kb/s).