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 0.18 μm 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 lIP3 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.     

A 5–6 GHz 1-V CMOS Direct-Conversion Receiver With an Integrated Quadrature Coupler

This paper describes a novel monolithic low voltage (1-V) CMOS RF front-end architecture with an integrated quadrature coupler (QC) and two subharmonic mixers for direct-down conversion. The LC-folded-cascode technique is adopted to achieve low-voltage operation while the subharmonic mixers in conjunction with the QC are used to eliminate LO self-mixing. In addition, the inherent bandpass characteristic of the LC tanks helps suppression of LO leakage at RF port. The circuit was fabricated in a standard 0.18-mum CMOS process for 5-6 GHz applications. At 5.4 GHz, the RF front-end exhibits a voltage gain of 26.2 dB and a noise figure of 5.2 dB while dissipating 45.5 mW from a 1.0-V supply. The achieved input-referred DC-offset due to LO self-mixing is below -110.7 dBm.     

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 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 Wideband CMOS RF Front-End Using AC-Coupled Current Mirrored Technique for Multiband Multistandard Mobile TV Tuners

In this paper, a wideband CMOS radio frequency (RF) front-end for various terrestrial mobile digital TV applications such as digital video broadcasting-handheld, terrestrial digital multimedia broadcasting, and integrated services digital broadcasting-terrestrial is proposed. To cover VHF III, UHF, and L bands and reduce the silicon area simultaneously, it employs three low-noise amplifiers and single-to-differential transconductors and shares the rest of the RF front-end. By applying ac-coupled current mirrored technique, the proposed RF front-end has good wideband performance, high linearity, and precise gain control. It is fabricated in 0.18 mum CMOS process and draws 15 mA~20 mA from a 1.8 V supply voltage for each band. It shows a gain of more than 29 dB, noise figure of lower than 2.5 dB, IIP2 of more than 30 dBm, IIP3 of more than -10 dBm for entire bands.     

A highly linear receiver front-end employing modified derivative superposition method with tuned inductors for 5.25 GHz

We design a highly linear CMOS RF receiver front-end operating in the 5 GHz band using the modified derivative superposition (DS) method with one- or two-tuned inductors in the low noise amplifier (LNA) and mixer. This method can be used to adjust the magnitude and phase of the third-order currents at output, and thus ensure that they cancel each other out. We characterize the two front-ends by the third-order input intercept point (IIP3), voltage conversion gain, and a noise figure based on the TSMC 0.18 μm RF CMOS process. Our simulation results suggest that the front-end with one-tuned inductor in the mixer supports linearization with the DS method, which only sacrifices 1.9 dB of IIP3 while the other performance parameters are improved. Furthermore, the front-end with two-tuned inductors requires a precise optimum design point, because it has to adjust two inductances simultaneously for optimization. If the inductances have deviated from the optimum design point, the front-end with two-tuned inductors has worse IIP3 characteristic than the front-end with one-tuned inductor. With two-tuned inductors, the front-end has an IIP3 of 5.3 dBm with a noise figure (NF) of 4.7 dB and a voltage conversion gain of 23.1 dB. The front-end with one-tuned inductor has an IIP3 of 3.4 dBm with an NF of 4.4 dB and a voltage conversion gain of 24.5 dB. There is a power consumption of 9.2 mA from a 1.5 V supply.     

用于便携式GPS接收机中的5.4mW低噪声高增益CMOS射频前端电路设计

设计了应用于便携式GPS接收机射频前端中的CMOS低噪声放大器和正交混频器.该电路中的低噪声放大器采用带源端电感负反馈的输入级,并引入功耗约束下的噪声和输入同时匹配技术.正交混频器基于吉尔伯特单元.电路采用TSMC 0.18μm RFCMOS工艺实现,总的电压转换增益为35dB,级联噪声系数为2.4dB,输入ldB压缩点为-22dBm,输入匹配良好,输入回损为-22.3dB,在1.8V电压供电下,整个全差分电路功耗为5.4mW.     

A low voltage current mode CMOS integrated receiver front-end for GPS system

This paper presents a low voltage, 1.6 GHz integrated receiver front-end which is implemented by the standard 0.35 μm, 3M2P CMOS technology. The receiver consists of a transconductance low noise amplifier (G_m-LNA), a down conversion current mode mixer and a voltage-controlled oscillator using accumulation-mode MOS varactor (A-MOS VCO). A current mode mixer is used to reduce the supply voltage to 1 V. A specially designed G_m-LNA converts RF input voltage to RF input current for the current mode mixer. This could eliminate an unnecessary I–V, V–I conversion and reduce the non-linearity contribution. Moreover, a low voltage A-MOS VCO, with a good phase noise and wide tuning frequency range, is used to generate a required oscillating frequency for the receiver. The integrated receiver front-end has a measured power conversion gain of 11.4 dB, an input referred third-order intercept point (IIP₃) of 6.1 dBm, and a noise figure of 5.87 dB. The measured total power consumption is 40.9 mW with 1 V supply.     

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。     

A 750 mV Fully Integrated Direct Conversion Receiver Front-End for GSM in 90-nm CMOS

The design of RF integrated circuits, at the low voltage allowed by sub-scaled technologies, is particularly challenging in cellular phone applications where the received signal is surrounded by huge interferers, determining an extremely high dynamic range requirement. In-depth investigations of 1/f noise sources and second-order intermodulation distortion mechanisms in direct downconversion mixers have been carried out in the recent past. This paper proposes a fully integrated receiver front-end, including LNA and quadrature mixer, supplied at 750 mV, able to meet GSM specifications. In particular, the direct downconverter employs a feedback loop to minimize second-order common mode intermodulation distortion, generated by a pseudo-differential transconductor, adopted for minimum voltage drop. For maximum dynamic range, the commutating pair is set with an LC filter. Prototypes, realized in a 90-nm RF CMOS process, show the following performances: 51 dBm IIP2, minimum over 25 samples, 1 dB desensitization point due to 3-MHz blocker at -18 dBm, 3.5 dB noise figure (NF), integrated between 1 kHz-100 kHz, 15 kHz 1/f noise corner. The front-end IIP2 has also been characterized with the mixer feedback loop switched off, resulting in an average reduction of 18 dB.     

A 1.2-V RF front-end with on-chip VCO for PCS 1900 direct conversion receiver in 0.13-/spl mu/m CMOS

In this paper, a 1.2-V RF front-end realized for the personal communications services (PCS) direct conversion receiver is presented. The RF front-end comprises a low-noise amplifier (LNA), quadrature mixers, and active RC low-pass filters with gain control. Quadrature local oscillator (LO) signals are generated on chip by a double-frequency voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) and frequency divider. A current-mode interface between the downconversion mixer output and analog baseband input together with a dynamic matching technique simultaneously improves the mixer linearity, allows the reduction of flicker noise due to the mixer switches, and minimizes the noise contribution of the analog baseband. The dynamic matching technique is employed to suppress the flicker noise of the common-mode feedback (CMFB) circuit utilized at the mixer output, which otherwise would dominate the low-frequency noise of the mixer. Various low-voltage circuit techniques are employed to enhance both the mixer second- and third-order linearity, and to lower the flicker noise. The RF front-end is fabricated in a 0.13-/spl mu/m CMOS process utilizing only standard process options. The RF front-end achieves a voltage gain of 50 dB, noise figure of 3.9 dB when integrated from 100 Hz to 135 kHz, IIP3 of -9 dBm, and at least IIP2 of +30dBm without calibration. The 4-GHz VCO meets the PCS 1900 phase noise specifications and has a phase noise of -132dBc/Hz at 3-MHz offset.     

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。     

0.5-V 5.6-GHz CMOS Receiver Subsystem

The building blocks of a 0.5-V receiver, including a receiver front-end and a low-pass filter (LPF), are fabricated using 0.18- $mu{hbox{m}}$ CMOS technology. At 5.6 GHz, the receiver front-end achieves a voltage gain of 17.1 dB and a noise figure of 8.7 dB, while dissipating at 19.4 mW. The fifth-order low-pass Chebyshev filter achieves a corner frequency of 2.6 MHz and an input-referred noise of 28.5 nV/sqrt (Hz) at 6.8 mW. The receiver front-end is further integrated with the LPFs to form a highly integrated receiver subsystem at ultra-low voltage.      

A 5.4 mW/0.07 mm$^{2}$ 2.4 GHz Front-End Receiver in 90 nm CMOS for IEEE 802.15.4 WPAN Standard

An integrated 2.4 GHz CMOS receiver front-end according to the IEEE 802.15.4 standard is presented in this paper. It integrates the overall RF part, from the balun up to the first stage of the channel filter, as well as the cells for the LO signal conditioning. The proposed architecture is based on a 6 MHz low-IF topology, which uses an inductorless LNA and a new clocking scheme for driving a passive mixer. When integrated in a 90 nm CMOS technology, the receiver front-end exhibits an area of only 0.07 mm², or 0.23 mm² when including an input integrated balun. The overall chip consumes 4 mA from a single 1.35 V supply voltage and it achieves a 35 dB conversion gain from input power in dBm to output voltage in dBvpk, a 7.5 dB NF value, -10 dBm of IIP3 and more than 32 dB of image rejection.     

A low power high-performance area efficient RF front-end exploiting body effect for 2.4 GHz IEEE 802.15.4 applications

The rising internet-of-things applications in home automation, smart wearables, healthcare monitoring demand small, area efficient, high-performance and low power radio frequency (RF) blocks for effective short-range communication. This growing market demand is addressed in this paper by proposing a fully CMOS radio frequency front-end (RFE) exploiting bulk effect. Apart from the primary function of frequency translation, proper circuit performance concerning the linearity, conversion gain, and noise figure is required for low-cost densely integrated transceivers operating in the 2.4 GHz ISM band. The proposed RFE at 2.4 GHz is designed and implemented in UMC 180 nm CMOS process technology with two modes of operation. In high gain mode (Mode-I), the post-layout simulation with SpectreRF shows a peak gain of 30.06 dB, IIP2 at 64.52 dBm, IIP3 at −2.74 dBm and a DSB-NF of 7.68 dB while consuming only 9.24 mW from the 1.8 V supply. In the high linear mode (Mode-II), the RFE achieves a higher IIP3 of 10.78 dBm, IIP2 of 91.56 dBm, the conversion gain of 23.5 dB, DSB-NF of 9.46 dB while consuming a low power of 3.6 mW. The fully CMOS circuit occupies a core area of only 0.0021 mm². The proposed front-end exhibits a spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) of 81.18 dB ensuring the high dynamic operation of the wireless system.     

Dual-band RF receiver for GPS-L1 and compass-B1 in a 55-nm CMOS

A fully integrated dual-band RF receiver with a low-IF architecture is designed and implemented for GPS-L 1 and Compass-Bl in a 55-nm CMOS process. The receiver incorporates two independent IF channels with 2 or 4 MHz bandwidth to receive dual-band signals around 1.57 GHz respectively. By implementing a flexible frequency plan, the RF front-end and frequency synthesizer are shared for the dual-band operation to save power consumption and chip area, as well as avoiding LO crosstalk. A digital automatic gain control （AGC） loop is utilized to improve the receiver＇s robustness by optimizing the conversion gain of the analog-to-digital converter （ADC）. While drawing about 20 mA per channel from a 1.2 V supply, this RF receiver achieves a minimum noise figure （NF） of about 1.8 dB, an image rejection （IMR） of more than 35 dB, a maximum voltage gain of about 122 dB, a gain dynamic range of 82 dB, and an maximum input-referred 1 dB compression point of about -36.5 dBm with an active die area of 1.5 × 1.4 mm2 for the whole chip.     

Highly linear and low noise 2.4 GHz RF front-end circuits using transformer and vertical NPN BJT

The proposed RF front-end circuits consist of a low noise amplifier using an on-chip transformer and a downconversion mixer using a parasitic vertical bipolar junction transistor and have been implemented in 0.18 mum deep n-well CMOS process. A gain of 33 dB, an IIP3 of -12 dBm, and a DSB noise figure of 4.5 dB have been achieved while consuming 5 mW from a 1.8 V supply     

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.     

Noise-canceling and IP3 improved CMOS RF front-end for DRM/DAB/DVB-H applications

A CMOS RF (radio frequency) front-end for digital radio broadcasting applications is presented that contains a wideband LNA, I/Q-mixers and VGAs, supporting other various wireless communication standards in the ultra-wide frequency band from 200 kHz to 2 GHz as well. Improvement of the NF (noise figure) and IP3 (third-order intermodulation distortion) is attained without significant degradation of other performances like voltage gain and power consumption. The NF is minimized by noise-canceling technology, and the IP3 is improved by using differential multiple gate transistors (DMGTR). The dB-in-linear VGA (variable gain amplifier) exploits a single PMOS to achieve exponential gain control. The circuit is fabricated in 0.18-μm CMOS technology. The S_(11) of the RF front-end is lower than -11.4 dB over the whole band of 200 kHz-2 GHz. The variable gain range is 12-42 dB at 0.25 GHz and 4-36 dB at 2 GHz. The DSB NF at maximum gain is 3.1-6.1 dB. The IIP3 at middle gain is -4.7 to 0.2 dBm. It consumes a DC power of only 36 mW at 1.8 V supply.     

一个双频带可重构的直接变频接收机射频前端

A dual-band reconfigurable wireless receiver RF front-end is presented, which is based on the directconversion principle and consists of a low noise amplifer （LNA） and a down-converter. By utilizing a compact switchable on-chip symmetrical inductor, the RF front-end could be switched between two operation frequency bands without extra die area cost. This RF front-end has been implemented in the 180 nm CMOS process and the measured results show that the front-end could provide a gain of 25 dB and IIP3 of 6 dBm at 2.2 GHz, and a gain of 18.8 dB and IIP3 of 7.3 dBm at 4.5 GHz. The whole front-end consumes 12 mA current at 1.2 V voltage supply for the LNA and 2.1 mA current at 1.8 V for the mixer, with a die area of 1.2 × 1 mm^2.