A 0.18-V 382- \mu W Bluetooth Low-Energy Receiver Front-End With 1.33-nW Sleep Power for Energy-Harvesting Applications in 28-nm CMOS

• Published in: IEEE journal of solid-state circuits 2018-06, Vol.53 (6), p.1618-1627
• Main Authors: Yi, Haidong, Yu, Wei-Han, Mak, Pui-In, Yin, Jun, Martins, Rui P.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Bandgap reference (BGR); Bluetooth; Bluetooth low energy (BLE); charge pump (CP); class-D voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO); CMOS; energy harvesting; low-noise amplifier (LNA); micropower manager (μPM); Mixers; Noise measurement; power-gating; Radio frequency; receiver (RX); Receivers; System-on-chip; ultra-low power (ULP); ultra-low voltage (ULV); Voltage-controlled oscillators
• ISSN: 0018-9200; 1558-173X
• DOI: 10.1109/JSSC.2018.2815987

This paper describes an ultra-low-voltage Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) receiver (RX) front end with an on-chip micropower manager ( \mu PM) to customize the internal voltage domains. It aims at direct powering by the sub-0.5-V energy-harvesting sources like the on-body thermoelectric, eliminating the loss and cost of the interim dc-dc converters. Specifically, the RX incorporates: 1) a two-stage power-gating low-noise amplifier with fully on-chip input-impedance matching and passive gain boosting reducing both the active and sleep power; 2) a class-D voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) in parallel with a class-C starter to secure a fast startup; and 3) a \mu PM using ring-VCO-locked charge pumps and bandgap references to withstand the supply-voltage variation (0.18-0.3 V). Fabricated in 28-nm CMOS, the RX operates down to a 0.18-V supply, while exhibiting 11.3-dB NF and −12.5-dBm out-of-band IIP3. The VCO shows < −113 dBc/Hz phase noise at 2.5-MHz offset. The active and sleep power are 382 \mu \text{W} and 1.33 nW, respectively.