As CMOS scales down and grows more expensive,
area-aware RF front-end design becomes appropriate. A wideband
front-end is presented that uses an inductorless LNA and
downconversion section up to 6 GHz. Frequency synthesis is realized
using a single-inductor dual-band 3.5 and 10 GHz VCO.
In-depth analysis describes the operation of the 4-port oscillator,
and compares phase noise to that of a classical VCO. The front-end
is realized in 90 nm digital CMOS. The LNA achieves a noise
figure of 2.7 dB with an average IIP3 of -2 dBm. The dual-band
VCO achieves a phase noise of -122 dBc/Hz and -128 dBc/Hz
at 3.9 GHz and 10 GHz, respectively, at 2.5 MHz offset. Both
circuits are embedded in a wideband direct-conversion front-end
consuming less than 60 mW from a 1.2 V supply
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