A Blocker-Tolerant Receiver Front End Employing Dual-Band N-Path Balun-LNA for 5G New Radio Cellular Applications

In this article, a blocker-tolerant receiver (RX) front end employing a dual-band N -path balun low-noise amplifier (balun-LNA) is presented for advanced cellular applications. The proposed RX front end can achieve a superior input-referred second-order intercept point (IIP2) performance without an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on microwave theory and techniques 2022-03, Vol.70 (3), p.1715-1724
Main Authors: Shin, Donguk, Lee, Kyudo, Kwon, Kuduck
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
5G mobile communication
<italic xmlns:ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">N -path
Amplifiers
Balun low-noise amplifier (balun-LNA)
Baluns
band-switchable differential inductor
Bandpass filters
blocker tolerant
Calibration
cellular
Cellular radio
channel selection
Dual band
frequency-division duplex
Inductors
Low pass filters
Mixers
new radio (NR)
Radio frequency
Receivers & amplifiers
second-order intercept point (IIP2) calibration
Third order intercept point
transmitter (TX) leakage rejection
Voltage
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Summary:In this article, a blocker-tolerant receiver (RX) front end employing a dual-band N -path balun low-noise amplifier (balun-LNA) is presented for advanced cellular applications. The proposed RX front end can achieve a superior input-referred second-order intercept point (IIP2) performance without any IIP2 calibration, as the N -path balun-LNA performs RF bandpass filtering and enhances blocker tolerance as well as the overall linearity of the RX. The proposed band-switchable differential inductor with a center tap enables the LC tank of the balun-LNA to support the operation of both low-band (LB) and mid-band (MB) frequencies for 5G new radio (NR) sub-6-GHz cellular applications. The RX front end is comprised of the dual-band N -path balun-LNA, a G_{m} -stage, current-mode passive mixers with a 25% duty-cycle local oscillator signal, current-mode passive RC low-pass filters, and transimpedance amplifiers. The RX front end was fabricated through a 65-nm CMOS process, and it was characterized primarily in the 5G NR LB and MB frequencies. The active die area was 2.24 mm 2 , and the RX front end drew a bias current of 15.1 mA from a nominal supply voltage of 1 V. It achieved a noise figure of 4.5 dB, a conversion gain of 43.5 dB, an out-of-band input-referred third-order intercept point of 7.89 dBm, and an IIP2 of more than 55 dBm.
ISSN:0018-9480
1557-9670
DOI:10.1109/TMTT.2021.3136295