4G CMOS nanometer receivers for mobile systems: Challenges and solutions

This paper presents the design challenges and solutions for 4G nanometer radio receivers for mobile devices. The specifications for the ZERO-IF/LOW-IF 4G receiver architecture are derived. Limitations due to the use of low-voltage nanometer technologies are described and novel circuit techniques, such as wideband noise reduction, inductoreless peaking, passive mixing, and low flicker noise amplification are proposed. Finally, a 1.2-V 90nm CMOS receiver front-end for the proposed WiMAX/LTE receiver is designed employing novel circuit techniques. The front-end covers 700 MHz – 6 GHz, providing a total gain of 34 dB, noise figure of 4 dB, flicker noise corner of 10 kHz, and a third order intercept point of −10dBm/0dBm, while consuming a total power of 10.2 mW.