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.     

应用于2.4GHz无线传感网的超低功耗射频接收前端设计

This paper presents the design of an ultralow power receiver front-end designed for a wireless sensor network （WSN） in a 0.18 μm CMOS process. The author designs two front-ends working in the saturation region and the subthreshold region respectively. The front-ends contain a two-stage cross-coupling cascaded common-gate （CG） LNA and a quadrature Gilbert IQ mixer. The measured conversion gain is variable with high gain at 24 dB and low gain at 7 dB for the saturation one, and high gain at 22 dB and low gain at 5 dB for the subthreshold one. The noise figure （NF） at high gain mode is 5.1 dB and 6.3 dB for each. The input 1 dB compression point （IPldB） at low gain mode is about -6 dBm and -3 dBm for each. The front-ends consume about 2.1 mA current from 1.8 V power supply for the saturation one and 1.3 mA current for the subthreshold one. The measured results show that, comparing with the power consumption saving, it is worth making sacrifices on the performance for using the subthreshold technology.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

一种新颖的低噪声放大器的噪声优化方法

This paper proposes a novel noise optimization technique.The technique gives analytical formulae for the noise performance of inductively degenerated CMOS low noise amplifier（LNA）circuits with an ideal gate inductor for a fixed bias voltage and nonideal gate inductor for a fixed power dissipation,respectively,by mathematical analysis and reasonable approximation methods.LNA circuits with required noise figure can be designed effectively and rapidly just by using hand calculations of the proposed formulae.We design a 1.8 GHz LNA in a TSMC 0.25 μm CMOS process.The measured results show a noise figure of 1.6 dB with a forward gain of 14.4 dB at a power consumption of 5 mW,demonstrating that the designed LNA circuits can achieve low noise figure levels at low power dissipation.     

A transformer-loaded receiver front end for 2.4 GHz WLAN in 0.13μm CMOS technology

A 2.4 GHz radio frequency receiver front end with an on-chip transformer compliant with IEEE 802.11b/g standards is presented.Based on zero-IF receiver architecture,the front end comprises a variable gain common-source low noise amplifier with an on-chip transformer as its load and a high linear quadrature folded Gilbert mixer.As the load of the LNA,the on-chip transformer is optimized for lowest resistive loss and highest power gain.The whole front end draws 21 mA from 1.2 V supply,and the measured results show a double side band noise figure of 3.75 dB,-31 dBm IIP3 with 44 dB conversion gain at maximum gain setting.Implemented in 0.13μm CMOS technology,it occupies a 0.612 mm~2 die size.     

一种片上变压器为负载的用于0.13 μm CMOS工艺2.4GHz WLAN的接收机射频前端电路

A 2.4 GHz radio frequency receiver front end with an on-chip transformer compliant with IEEE 802.11b/g standards is presented. Based on zero-IF receiver architecture, the front end comprises a variable gain common-source low noise amplifier with an on-chip transformer as its load and a high linear quadrature folded Gilbert mixer. As the load of the LNA, the on-chip transformer is optimized for lowest resistive loss and highest power gain. The whole front end draws 21 mA from 1.2 V supply, and the measured results show a double side band noise figure of 3.75 dB, -31 dBm IIP3 with 44 dB conversion gain at maximum gain setting. Implemented in 0.13 μ m CMOS technology, it occupies a 0.612 mm² die size.     

用于ZigBee的2.4GHz低功耗双增益低噪声放大器

This paper presents a fully differential dual gain low noise amplifier（DGLNA） for low power 2.45-GHz ZigBee/IEEE 802.15.4 applications.The effect of input parasitics on the inductively degenerated cascode LNA is analyzed.Circuit design details within the guidelines of the analysis are presented.The chip was implemented in SMIC 0.18-μm 1P6M RF/mixed signal CMOS process.The DGLNA achieves a maximum gain of 8 dB and a minimum gain of 1 dB with good input return loss.In high gain mode, the measured noise figure（NF） is 2.3-3 dB in the whole 2.45-GHz ISM band.The measured 1-dB compression point, IIP3 and IIP2 is-9, 1 and 33 dBm, respectively.The DGLNA consumes 2 mA of current from a 1.8 V power supply.     

Low power LNA using the MOSFETs in moderate inversion

This paper presents an integrated complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) low power low noise amplifier (LNA) for global positioning system (GPS) receivers.To achieve low power dissipation,the MOS transistors in the proposed LNA are biased in moderate inversion region.It is implemented by SMIC 180 nm 1P6M CMOS process.The experiment results show that a gain of 12.14 dB@1.57 GHz is achieved with low noise figure (NF) of 1.62 dB.The power consumption of the circuit is 1.5 mW at supply voltage of 1.8 V.The ratio of gain to dc power consumption is 8 dB/mW.The size of the LNA is only 980μm× 720μm including the pads.     

A 2.4GHz CMOS Monolithic Transceiver Front-End for IEEE 802.11b Wireless LAN Applications

A 2.4GHz CMOS monolithic transceiver front-end for IEEE 802.11b wireless LAN applications is presented.The receiver and transmitter are both of superheterodyne structure for good system performance.The front-end consists of five blocks:low noise amplifier,down-converter,up-converter, pre-amplifier,and LO buffer.Their input/output impedance are all on-chip matched to 50Ω except the down-converter which has open-drain outputs.The transceiver RF front-end has been implemented in a 0.18μm CMOS process.When the LNA and the down-converter are directly connected,the measured noise figure is 5.2dB,the measured available power gain 12.5dB,the input 1dB compression point -18dBm,and the third-order input intercept point -7dBm.The receiver front-end draws 13.6mA currents from the 1.8V power supply.When the up-converter and pre-amplifier are directly connected,the measured noise figure is 12.4dB,the power gain is 23.8dB,the output 1dB compression point is 15dBm,and the third-order output intercept point is 16dBm.The transmitter consumes 276mA current from the 1.8V power supply.     

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.     

Design of a low noise distributed amplifier with adjustable gain control in 0.15μm GaAs PHEMT

正A low noise distributed amplifier consisting of 9 gain cells is presented.The chip is fabricated with 0.15-μm GaAs pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistor(PHEMT) technology from Win Semiconductor of Taiwan.A special optional gate bias technique is introduced to allow an adjustable gain control range of 10 dB.A novel cascode structure is adopted to extend the output voltage and bandwidth.The measurement results show that the amplifier gives an average gain of 15 dB with a gain flatness of±1 dB in the 2-20 GHz band.The noise figure is between 2 and 4.1 dB during the band from 2 to 20 GHz.The amplifier also provides 13.8 dBm of output power at a 1 dB gain compression point and 10.5 dBm of input third order intercept point(IIP3),which demonstrates the excellent performance of linearity.The power consumption is 300 mW with a supply of 5 V,and the chip area is 2.36×1.01 mm~2.     

A wideband CMOS VGLNA based on single-to-differential stage and resistive attenuator for TV tuners

A wideband CMOS variable gain low noise amplifier(VGLNA) based on a single-to-differential(S2D) stage and resistive attenuator is presented for TV tuner applications.Detailed analysis of input matching,noise figure(NF) and linearity for S2D is given.A highly linear passive resistive attenuator is proposed to provide 6 dB attenuation and input matching for each gain stage.The chip was fabricated by a 0.18μm 1P6M CMOS process, and the measurements show that the VGLNA covers a gain range over 36.4 dB and achieves a maximum gain of 21.3 dB,a minimum NF of 3.0 dB,an IIP3 of 0.9 dBm and an IIP2 of 26.3 dBm at high gain mode with a power consumption less than 10 mA from a 1.8 V supply.     

Radio Frequency Low Noise Amplifier with Linearizing Bias Circuit

A 1.34 GHz-1=60 MHz low noise amplifier （LNA） designed in a 0.35 pm SiGe process is presented. The designed LNA exhibits a power gain of 21.46 dB and a noise figure （NF） of 1.27 dB at 1.34 GHz. The linearity is improved with an active biasing technique. The post-layout simulation shows an input referred 1-dB compression point （IPldn） of-11.52 dBm. Compared with the recent reported high gain LNAs, the proposed LNA has a much better linearity without degrading other performance. The LNA draws 10 mA current from a 3.3 V power supply.     

A 3.1-4.8 GHz CMOS receiver for MB-OFDM UWB

An integrated fully differential ultra-wideband CMOS receiver for 3.1-4.8 GHz MB-OFDM systems is presented. A gain controllable low noise amplifier and a merged quadrature mixer are integrated as the RF front-end. Five order Gm-C type low pass filters and VGAs are also integrated for both I and Q IF paths in the receiver. The ESD protected chip is fabricated in a Jazz 0.18μm RF CMOS process and achieves a maximum total voltage gain of 65 dB, an AGC range of 45 dB with about 6 dB/step, an averaged total noise figure of 6.4 to 8.8 dB over 3 bands and an in-band IIP3 of-5.1 dBm. The receiver occupies 2.3 mm2 and consumes 110 mA from a 1.8 V supply including test buffers and a digital module.     

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.     

A △∑ fractional-N frequency synthesizer for FM tuner using low noise filter and quantization noise suppression technique

A △∑ fractional-N frequency synthesizer fabricated in a 130 nm CMOS technology is presented for the application of an FM tuner. A low noise filter, occupying a small die area and decreasing the output noise, is integrated on a chip. A quantization noise suppression technique, using a reduced step size of the frequency divider, is also adopted. The proposed synthesizer needs no off-chip components and occupies an area of 0.7 mm2. The in-band phase noise （from 10 to 100 kHz） below -108 dBc/Hz and out-of-band phase noise of -122.9 dBc/Hz （at 1 MHz offset） are measured with a loop bandwidth of 200 kHz. The quantization noise suppression technique reduces the in-band and out-of band phase noise by 15 dB and 7 dB respectively. The integrated RMS phase error is no more than 0.48°. The proposed synthesizer consumes a total power of 7.4 mW and the frequency resolution is less than 1 Hz.     

一种新型低功耗CMOS压控振荡器采用电感偏置实现高性能的FoM

A novel voltage-controlled oscillator(VCO) topology with low voltage and low power is presented. It employed the inductive-biasing to build a feedback path between the tank and the MOS gate to enhance the voltage gain from output nodes of the tank to the gate node of the cross-coupled transistor. Theoretical analysis using timevarying phase noise theory derives closed-form symbolic formulas for the 1/f~2 phase noise region, showing that this feedback path could improve the phase noise performance. The proposed VCO is fabricated in TSMC 0.13 m CMOS technology. Working under a 0.3 V supply voltage with 1.2 m W power consumption, the measured phase noise of the VCO is –119.4 d Bc/Hz at 1 MHz offset frequency from the carrier of 4.92 GHz, resulting in an Fo M of 192.5 d Bc/Hz.