A Low Power and Wide Variable Gain RF Receiver Front-end for 5.25-㎓ Band

A CMOS front-end with wide variable gain and low power consumption for 5.25 ㎓ band has been designed and simulated with the TSMC 0.18 ㎛ CMOS technology. To obtain wide variable gain range, a p-MOSFET is connected in a shunt configuration for the low noise amplifier (LNA) section. For a mixer, a single balanced and folded structure is employed for the low power consumption. The bias currents of the transconductance and switching stages in the mixer area can be separated without using a current bleeding path. The proposed front-end has a maximum gain of 33 ㏈ with a variable gain range of 25 ㏈. The noise figure and third-order input intercept point (IIP3) are 5.2 ㏈ and -8.5 ㏈m, respectively. For the operating condition, the proposed front-end consumes 7.1 ㎽ at a high gain mode, and 2.6 ㎽ at a low gain mode.