Low-Power High-Linearity Mixer-First Receiver Using Implicit Capacitive Stacking With 3× Voltage Gain

In this article, we present a passive mixer-first receiver front end providing a low-power integrated solution for high interference robustness in radios targeting Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications. The receiver front end employs a novel N-path filter/mixer, a linear baseband amplifier, and a st...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE journal of solid-state circuits 2022-01, Vol.57 (1), p.245-259
Main Authors: Purushothaman, Vijaya Kumar, Klumperink, Eric A. M., Plompen, Roel, Nauta, Bram
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Baseband
Bottom-plate mixing
capacitive stacking
Capacitors
CMOS
complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS)
Conversion
Frequency ranges
fully depleted silicon on insulator (FDSOI)
high linearity
interference-robust
Linearity
low noise
low power
mixer-first receiver
Mixers
N-path filter
Noise measurement
passive mixer
Power consumption
Radio frequency
Receivers
Stacking
transformer
Transformers
Voltage gain
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Summary:In this article, we present a passive mixer-first receiver front end providing a low-power integrated solution for high interference robustness in radios targeting Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications. The receiver front end employs a novel N-path filter/mixer, a linear baseband amplifier, and a step-up transformer to realize sub-6-dB NF and >20-dBm OB-IIP3 concurrently. The proposed N-path filter/mixer exploits an implicit capacitive stacking principle to achieve passive voltage gain of 3 during down-conversion and high out-of-band linearity simultaneously while using at least 2 \times less total capacitance for the same RF bandwidth compared to a conventional switch-capacitor N-path filter. Fabricated in 22-nm complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) fully depleted silicon on insulator (FDSOI), the receiver prototype-including a 2:6 transformer-occupies only 0.2 mm 2 of active area. Operating in the frequency range of 1.8-2.8 GHz, the front end provides a 45-47-dB conversion gain and a baseband bandwidth of 2 MHz. Due to passive voltage gain in the filter/mixer and transformer, the implemented front end consumes only 1.7-2.5 mW of power to achieve < 6-dB NF, ~24/60/1 dBm out-of-band IIP3/IIP2/B1dB, respectively.
ISSN:0018-9200
1558-173X
DOI:10.1109/JSSC.2021.3091942