Summary
This letter describes a low‐voltage low‐power (LV‐LP) 2.4‐GHz mixer for Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) band wireless applications. The approach is based on a two‐stage amplifier, and the Gilbert switch stage is inserted between the two amplifier stages. The proposed amplifier‐based mixer delivers a remarkable conversion gain of 13 dB with a local oscillator (LO) power of 7 dBm, while consuming only 1.05‐mW DC power from a 0.8‐V supply voltage. The input‐referred third‐order intercept point (IIP3) of the mixer is 3.82 dBm, and the chip area is only 0.429 mm2. The results indicate that this mixer is suitable for the low‐voltage low‐power applications. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.