Frequency-Translational Quadrature-Hybrid Receivers for Very-Low-Noise, Frequency-Agile, Scalable Inter-Band Carrier Aggregation

A frequency-translational quadrature-hybrid receiver is proposed that achieves wideband input matching for a reflective low-noise-amplifier input impedance and enables the realization of wideband, concurrent receivers. Frequency-agile, inter-band carrier aggregation is realized from a single antenna through RF signal sharing and quadrature-hybrid-coupler daisy chaining. A 1.1 V 65 nm CMOS prototype chip is demonstrated that has a sub-1 dB minimum NF, a 12 MHz to 70 MHz RF bandwidth, a +8 dBm II P3, and a -15 dBm B1dB and consumes <;58 mW per channel. The prototypes have been integrated into a demonstration system that features 4-band inter-band carrier aggregation with modulated carriers placed between 0.69 and 2.1 GHz and received with an EVM <;2.8%.

[1]  Bram Nauta,et al.  A CMOS transconductance-C filter technique for very high frequencies , 1992 .

[2]  Xin He,et al.  A compact SAW-less multiband WCDMA/GPS receiver front-end with translational loop for input matching , 2011, 2011 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference.

[3]  Jonathan Borremans,et al.  A 40 nm CMOS 0.4–6 GHz Receiver Resilient to Out-of-Band Blockers , 2011, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[4]  Imad ud Din,et al.  A receiver for LTE Rel-11 and beyond supporting non-contiguous carrier aggregation , 2013, 2013 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference Digest of Technical Papers.

[5]  Heng Zhang,et al.  Linearization Techniques for CMOS Low Noise Amplifiers: A Tutorial , 2011, IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems I: Regular Papers.

[6]  Rinaldo Castello,et al.  SAW-less analog front-end receivers for TDD and FDD , 2013, 2013 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference Digest of Technical Papers.

[7]  Ahmad Mirzaei,et al.  A Blocker-Tolerant, Noise-Cancelling Receiver Suitable for Wideband Wireless Applications , 2012, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[8]  Philippe Cathelin,et al.  Reconfigurable wide-band receiver with positive feed-back translational loop , 2011, 2011 IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium.

[9]  B. Nauta,et al.  Achieving Wideband sub-1dB Noise Figure and High Gain with MOSFETs if Input Power Matching is not Required , 2007, 2007 IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits (RFIC) Symposium.

[10]  Peter R. Kinget,et al.  9.3 A very-low-noise frequency-translational quadrature-hybrid receiver for carrier aggregation , 2016, 2016 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC).

[11]  B. Nauta,et al.  Wide-band CMOS low-noise amplifier exploiting thermal noise canceling , 2004, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[12]  Behzad Razavi,et al.  RF Microelectronics (2nd Edition) (Prentice Hall Communications Engineering and Emerging Technologies Series) , 2011 .

[13]  Leonid Belostotski,et al.  Sub-0.2 dB Noise Figure Wideband Room-Temperature CMOS LNA With Non-50 $\Omega$ Signal-Source Impedance , 2007, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[14]  Jonathan Borremans,et al.  A 0.9 V 0.4–6 GHz Harmonic Recombination SDR Receiver in 28 nm CMOS With HR3/HR5 and IIP2 Calibration , 2014, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[15]  E. Sanchez-Sinencio,et al.  Using capacitive cross-coupling technique in RF low noise amplifiers and down-conversion mixer design , 2000, Proceedings of the 26th European Solid-State Circuits Conference.

[16]  David Harris,et al.  CMOS VLSI Design: A Circuits and Systems Perspective , 2004 .

[17]  Behzad Razavi,et al.  An RF Receiver for Intra-Band Carrier Aggregation , 2015, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[18]  Thomas H. Lee,et al.  The Design of CMOS Radio-Frequency Integrated Circuits: RF CIRCUITS THROUGH THE AGES , 2003 .

[19]  Anthony R. Kerr.  On the noise properties of balanced amplifiers , 1998 .

[20]  Zhenhua Liu,et al.  A 0.9dB NF 9mW 28nm triple-band GNSS radio receiver , 2014, 2014 IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits Symposium.

[21]  K. Kurokawa,et al.  Design theory of balanced transistor amplifiers , 1965 .

[22]  Peter R. Kinget,et al.  A field-programmable noise-canceling wideband receiver with high-linearity hybrid class-AB-C LNTAs , 2015, 2015 IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference (CICC).

[23]  B. Nauta,et al.  Wideband Balun-LNA With Simultaneous Output Balancing, Noise-Canceling and Distortion-Canceling , 2008, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[24]  Jingshi Yao,et al.  1.5–2.7 GHz ultra low noise bypass LNA , 2014, 2014 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium (IMS2014).

[25]  Hossein Hashemi,et al.  Reconfigurable Receiver With Radio-Frequency Current-Mode Complex Signal Processing Supporting Carrier Aggregation , 2015, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[26]  Hua Wang,et al.  A Scalable 6-to-18 GHz Concurrent Dual-Band Quad-Beam Phased-Array Receiver in CMOS , 2008, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits.

[27]  Sven Mattisson,et al.  ES3: How to achieve 1000× more wireless data capacity? 5G? , 2015, ISSCC.