Highly linear direct conversion receiver using customized on-chip balun

Abstract

This paper presents a highly linear radio frequency receiver front-end with on-chip balun for cellular application at 2GHz in 65nm CMOS technology. Based on direct conversion architecture, the implemented front-end comprises a customized on-chip balun for single-ended to differential signal conversion, a differential common-gate low noise amplifier and voltage mode quadrature passive mixer. The simulated in-band compression point is −0.5dBm and third order input intercept point is +6.2dBm. An out-of-band blocker compression point up to +4.8dBm and third order input intercept point of +16dBm are achieved thanks to the frequency translation filtering technique. The low-noise amplifier consumes 3mA current using 1.8V supply. The overall noise figure including balun loss, low-noise amplifier, mixer and a simplified model of a baseband filter is 3.8dB.