A Passive Mixer-First Receiver With Digitally Controlled and Widely Tunable RF Interface

A software-defined radio (SDR) receiver with baseband programmable RF bandpass filter (BPF) and complex impedance match is presented. The passive mixer-first architecture used here allows the impedance characteristics of the receiver's baseband circuits to be translated to the RF port of the receiver. Tuning the resistance at the baseband port allows for a real impedance match to the antenna. The addition of "complex feedback" between I and Q paths allows for matching to the imaginary component of the antenna impedance. By implementing both real and imaginary components with resistors in feedback around low noise baseband amplifiers, noise figure is also kept low. Tunable sampling capacitors on the baseband side of the passive mixer translate to tunable-Q filters on the RF port which allow for very good out-of-band linearity. Furthermore, the concept of in-band and out-of-band must be redefined as the impedance match and BPF center frequency move with the LO frequency, such that matching and filtering track the receive frequency. Additionally, 8-phase mixing is shown to provide significant benefits such as impedance matching range, rejection of blockers at LO harmonics, and lower noise figure (NF). Measurements from the receiver implemented in 65 nm CMOS show 70 dB of gain, NF as low as 3 dB, and 25 dBm out-of-band IIP3. Furthermore, tunable impedance matching shows that S11 <;- 30 dB can be achieved at any receive frequency from 0.1-1.3 GHz.

[1]  Namsoo Kim,et al.  A highly linear SAW-less CMOS receiver using a mixer with embedded Tx filtering for CDMA , 2008, 2008 IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference.

[2]  L. Larson,et al.  Distortion in Current Commutating Passive CMOS Downconversion Mixers , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.

[3]  M.-C.F. Chang,et al.  A CMOS passive mixer with low flicker noise for low-power direct-conversion receiver , 2005, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[4]  Shinichi Hori,et al.  A Widely-Tunable, Reconfigurable CMOS Analog Baseband IC for Software-Defined Radio , 2009, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[5]  Alyosha C. Molnar,et al.  Implications of Passive Mixer Transparency for Impedance Matching and Noise Figure in Passive Mixer-First Receivers , 2010, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers.

[6]  Bertan Bakkaloglu,et al.  A CMOS adaptive antenna-impedance-tuning IC operating in the 850MHz-to-2GHz band , 2009, 2009 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference - Digest of Technical Papers.

[7]  D. G. Tucker,et al.  The history of the homodyne and synchrodyne , 1954 .

[8]  N. A. Moseley,et al.  Digitally Enhanced Software-Defined Radio Receiver Robust to Out-of-Band Interference , 2009, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[9]  J. Chiu,et al.  A frequency translation technique for SAW-Less 3G receivers , 2009, 2009 Symposium on VLSI Circuits.

[10]  Vladimir Aparin,et al.  A Resistively Degenerated Wideband Passive Mixer With Low Noise Figure and High ${\rm IIP}_{2}$ , 2010, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques.

[11]  Jin-Su Ko,et al.  A single-chip quad-band GSM/GPRS transceiver in 0.18 /spl mu/m standard CMOS , 2005, ISSCC. 2005 IEEE International Digest of Technical Papers. Solid-State Circuits Conference, 2005..

[12]  J.C. Leete,et al.  Analysis and Optimization of Current-Driven Passive Mixers in Narrowband Direct-Conversion Receivers , 2009, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[13]  Domine Leenaerts,et al.  A 0.6-to-10GHz Receiver Front-End in 45nm CMOS , 2008, 2008 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference - Digest of Technical Papers.

[14]  Eric A. M. Klumperink,et al.  Unified Frequency-Domain Analysis of Switched-Series-$RC$ Passive Mixers and Samplers , 2010, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers.

[15]  Ali Hajimiri,et al.  A rail-to-rail input receiver employing successive regeneration and adaptive cancellation of intermodulation products , 2010, 2010 IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium.

[16]  Xin He,et al.  A Low-Power, Low-EVM, SAW-Less WCDMA Transmitter Using Direct Quadrature Voltage Modulation , 2009, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[17]  Andrea Baschirotto,et al.  A Fully Reconfigurable Software-Defined Radio Transceiver in 0.13μm CMOS , 2007, 2007 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference. Digest of Technical Papers.

[18]  Kristofer S. J. Pister,et al.  An ultra-low power 900 MHz RF transceiver for wireless sensor networks , 2004, Proceedings of the IEEE 2004 Custom Integrated Circuits Conference (IEEE Cat. No.04CH37571).

[19]  Lawrence E. Larson,et al.  A SAW-less CDMA receiver front-end with single-ended LNA and single-balanced mixer with 25% duty-cycle LO in 65nm CMOS , 2009, 2009 IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium.

[20]  Lu Han,et al.  A Single–Chip 10-Band WCDMA/HSDPA 4-Band GSM/EDGE SAW-less CMOS Receiver With DigRF 3G Interface and ${+}$90 dBm IIP2 , 2009, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[21]  J. Ryynanen,et al.  Integrated circuits for multiband multimode receivers , 2006, IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine.

[22]  F. Petre,et al.  A novel and low-cost analog front-end mismatch calibration scheme for MIMO-OFDM WLANs , 2006, 2006 IEEE Radio and Wireless Symposium.

[23]  Minjae Lee,et al.  An 800-MHz–6-GHz Software-Defined Wireless Receiver in 90-nm CMOS , 2006, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[24]  L. Franks,et al.  Solid-state sampled-data bandpass filters , 1960 .

[25]  Thierry Parra,et al.  A 5.4 mW/0.07 mm$^{2}$ 2.4 GHz Front-End Receiver in 90 nm CMOS for IEEE 802.15.4 WPAN Standard , 2008, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[26]  K.S.J. Pister,et al.  Low-Power 2.4-GHz Transceiver With Passive RX Front-End and 400-mV Supply , 2006, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[27]  Reza Mahmoudi,et al.  A GSM/EDGE/WCDMA Adaptive Series-LC Matching Network Using RF-MEMS Switches , 2008, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[28]  Caroline Andrews,et al.  A passive-mixer-first receiver with baseband-controlled RF impedance matching, ≪ 6dB NF, and ≫ 27dBm wideband IIP3 , 2010, 2010 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference - (ISSCC).

[29]  J. Ryynanen,et al.  2.4-GHz receiver for sensor applications , 2005, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[30]  Eric A. M. Klumperink,et al.  A 0.2-to-2.0GHz 65nm CMOS receiver without LNA achieving ≫11dBm IIP3 and ≪6.5 dB NF , 2009, 2009 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference - Digest of Technical Papers.

[31]  Ahmad Mirzaei,et al.  Analysis and Optimization of Direct-Conversion Receivers With 25% Duty-Cycle Current-Driven Passive Mixers , 2010, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers.

[32]  J. Ryynanen,et al.  Multiband receiver for base-station applications , 2008, 2008 IEEE Radio and Wireless Symposium.

[33]  Bram Nauta,et al.  A differential 4-path highly linear widely tunable on-chip band-pass filter , 2010, 2010 IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium.

[34]  L. Van der Perre,et al.  Receiver Architectures for Software-defined Radios in Mobile Terminals: the Path to Cognitive Radios , 2007, 2007 IEEE Radio and Wireless Symposium.

[35]  Sunki Min,et al.  A Fully Integrated Direct-Conversion Receiver for CDMA and GPS Applications , 2005, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[36]  David J. Allstot,et al.  A Current Reuse Quadrature GPS Receiver in 0.13 $\mu$m CMOS , 2010, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[37]  H. Darabi,et al.  A Blocker Filtering Technique for SAW-Less Wireless Receivers , 2007, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[38]  Li Lin,et al.  A 1.75 GHz highly-integrated narrow-band CMOS transmitter with harmonic-rejection mixers , 2001, 2001 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference. Digest of Technical Papers. ISSCC (Cat. No.01CH37177).