A 5-GHz highly integrated receiver front-end

In this paper a radio front-end for a IEEE 802.11a and HIPERLAN2 sliding-IF receiver is presented. The circuit, implemented in a low-cost 46-GHz-f _T silicon bipolar process, includes a variable-gain low noise amplifier and a double-balanced mixer. Thanks to monolithic LC filters and on-chip single-ended-to-differential conversion of the RF signal, the proposed solution does not require the expensive image rejection filter and an external input balun. The receiver front-end exhibits a 4.3-dB noise figure and a power gain of 21 dB, providing an image rejection ratio higher than 50 dB. By using a 1-bit gain control, it achieves an input 1-dB compression point of −11 dBm, while drawing only 22 mA from a 3-V supply voltage.