RF transconductor linearization technique robust to process, voltage and temperature variations

Abstract

A new reconfigurable linearized low noise transconductance amplifier (LNTA) design for a software-defined radio receiver is presented. The transconductor design aims at realizing high linearity at RF in a way that is robust for Process, Voltage and Temperature variations. It exploits resistive degeneration in combination with a floating battery by-pass circuit and replica biasing to improve IIP3 in a robust way. The LNTA with current domain mixer is implemented in a 45nm CMOS process. Compared to an inverter based LNTA with the same transconductance, it improves PIIP3 from 2 dBm to a robust PIIP3 of 8 dBm at the cost of 67% increase in power consumption.