Harmonic fold back reduction at the N‐path filters

In this paper, a method is proposed to reduce harmonic fold back (HFB) problem of N‐path filters, without increasing the input reference clock (f_CLK ) frequency. The HFB at the N‐path filter is analyzed, and simple expressions are extracted to model this problem. Using the results of the analysis, an M‐of‐N‐path filter has been proposed that behaves like an M × N‐path filter in terms of HFB problem; however, the f_CLK frequency of this structure is the same as an N‐path filter. To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed idea, a 3‐of‐4‐path filter is designed, and its characteristics are compared with 4‐path and 12‐path filters by simulation. Impacts of different non‐idealities like clock‐phase error, mismatch, and parasitic capacitance are investigated. The transistor‐level implementation of this filter is performed in 0.18 µm Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology. The simulation results show that the filter has the pass‐band gain of 17 dB, tuning range of 0.2–1.2 GHz, ?3 dB bandwidth of 25 MHz, quality factor of 8–48, 18 dB out‐of‐band rejection, 16 dB rejection of the third harmonic of switching frequency (f_s ), and the noise figure of 4.35 dB (using ideal G_m cells) and 6.95 dB (for practical G_m cells). The strongest harmonic folding to the filter pass‐band occurs around 11f_s with the attenuation of 23.8 dB. Each G_m cell draws about 12.4 mA from 1.8 V supply, and the out‐of‐band IIP3 and P _{1 dB,CP} are 17 and 4 dBm, respectively. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.