Breaking the Performance Tradeoffs in N-Path Mixer-First Receivers Using a Second-Order Baseband Noise-Canceling TIA

Sharma, Prateek; Nallam, Nagarjuna

doi:10.1109/jssc.2020.3005776

Cited by 20 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Similar to an N-path filter, the Q-factor of the frequency-translated bandpass filter in a mixer-first receiver gets boosted in this frequency translation process; the resultant Q-factor is proportional to the mixer LO frequency. Because of this high-Q at RF, mixer-first receivers are considered a promising solution for tunable RF filtering front-ends [8]- [11], [27].…”

Section: B Mixer-first Direct-conversion Filtering Front-endsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Passive-Mixer-First Acoustic-Filtering Superheterodyne RF Front-End

Seo

Zhou

2021

IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits

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This article presents an agile passive-mixer-first superheterodyne RF front-end that utilizes a gigahertz acoustic filter as its intermediate-frequency (IF) load-essentially a mixer-first acoustic-filtering RF front-end. The passive mixer frequency-translates a sharp but fixed-frequency acousticfiltering response to a much higher and mixer-clock-defined tunable frequency while preserves input matching, high linearity, and introduces minimal loss. In contrast to low-or zero-IF passive-mixer-first receivers which often use active filters at baseband, using an acoustic filter as the IF load is fraught with fundamental challenges. We introduce ON-chip LC tanks, as an impedance shaper, to suppress the acoustic filter impedance components at harmonic frequencies and an all-passive recombination network at IF to share one acoustic filter among multiple paths. Also, we extend the existing analysis of mixer-first frontends from assuming a load impedance with a low-pass frequency response to having a generic load impedance. Our analysis unveils impedance aliasing in a generic mixer-first front-end, motivating the need for an ON-chip impedance shaper. A front-end prototype using a 65-nm CMOS switched-LC passive mixer followed by an off-the-shelf 1.6-GHz surface-acoustic-wave (SAW) filter is designed. In measurement, the RF front-end operates across 2.5-to-4.5 GHz achieving 5.5-dB noise figure and +29.4-dBm IIP3 at 1× bandwidth offset.

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Section: B Mixer-first Direct-conversion Filtering Front-endsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Passive-Mixer-First Acoustic-Filtering Superheterodyne RF Front-End

Seo

Zhou

2021

IEEE J. Solid-State Circuits

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“…(a) A typical four-phase passive mixer-first receiver. (b) Trade-offs in the design of the TIA for a mixer-first receiver [40].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Typical trade-offs involved in the design of the TIA for a mixer-first receiver are shown in Fig. 1(b) [40]. In highlinearity mixer-first receivers presented in [20], [23], [24], the BB TIAs consume a significant portion of the total power budget.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The shunt-feedback topology is the most commonly used TIA in mixer-first receivers. Opamp (or OTA) based shuntfeedback TIAs usually exhibit poor linearity and require an additional linearization technique, such as noise-anddistortion cancellation [40], to improve the in-band linearity. The noise-and-distortion canceling technique, which is also frequently used in the design of RF LNAs [10], [11], requires significantly high power to be dissipated in the auxiliary stage.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Four-Phase Passive Mixer-First Receiver With a Low-Power Complementary Common-Gate TIA

Das

Nallam

2020

IEEE Access

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This paper presents a four-phase passive mixer-first receiver using a common-gate (CG) trans-impedance amplifier (TIA), instead of a conventional shunt-feedback amplifier. The four-transistor TIA used in this work combines current-reuse with cross-coupled g m-boosting to achieve a reduced noise figure (NF) at low power levels. Moreover, complementary derivative-superposition (CDS) linearization within the TIA helps to improve the linearity with no additional power overhead. A prototype receiver is implemented in a 180 nm CMOS technology. The receiver operates from 0.3 to 1.3 GHz with a conversion gain of 21.9 dB. In measurements, the receiver achieved a noise figure of 5.8 dB and an in-band (IB) IIP3 of +7.2 dBm while consuming 0.34 mW power per TIA at 1 GHz. The measured spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) at 1 GHz is 76.9 dB. INDEX TERMS Common-gate trans-impedance amplifier (TIA), current-reuse, g m-boosting, low-power, mixer-first, N-path filter, passive mixer, tunable, wideband.

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“…Several TIAs have already been proposed for POF applications, the shunt-feedback topology, shown in Figure 1, being the most commonly employed due to its more linear performance and ease of design. Moreover, there are several noise reduction techniques described in the literature to increase receiver sensitivity [8,9]. However, it is still very challenging to fulfill the requirements of sensitivity and bandwidth (BW) needed for the low-cost applications mentioned above simultaneously due to the high capacitance of the photodiodes and their small responsivity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High-Sensitivity Large-Area Photodiode Read-Out Using a Divide-and-Conquer Technique

Royo

Sánchez-Azqueta

Aldea

et al. 2020

Sensors

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In this letter, we present a novel technique to increase the sensitivity of optical read-out with large integrated photodiodes (PD). It consists of manufacturing the PD in several pieces, instead of a single device, and connecting a dedicated transimpedance amplifier (TIA) to each of these pieces. The output signals of the TIAs are combined, achieving a higher signal-to-noise ratio than with the traditional approach. This work shows a remarkable improvement in the sensitivity and transimpedance without the need for additional modifications or compensation techniques. As a result, an increase in sensitivity of 7.9 dBm and transimpedance of 8.7 dBΩ for the same bandwidth is achieved when dividing the photodiode read-out into 16 parallel paths. The proposed divide-and-conquer technique can be applied to any TIA design, and it is also independent of the core amplifier structure and fabrication process, which means it is compatible with every technology allowing the integration of PDs.

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Breaking the Performance Tradeoffs in N-Path Mixer-First Receivers Using a Second-Order Baseband Noise-Canceling TIA

Cited by 20 publications

References 27 publications

A Passive-Mixer-First Acoustic-Filtering Superheterodyne RF Front-End

A Passive-Mixer-First Acoustic-Filtering Superheterodyne RF Front-End

A Four-Phase Passive Mixer-First Receiver With a Low-Power Complementary Common-Gate TIA

High-Sensitivity Large-Area Photodiode Read-Out Using a Divide-and-Conquer Technique

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