A 1 Gb/s Mixed-Signal Baseband Analog Front-End for a 60 GHz Wireless Receiver

Abstract

A low-power mixed-signal baseband analog front-end for 60 GHz, 1 Gb/s wireless communications has been implemented in a standard 90 nm CMOS process. The receiver is capable of operating under indoor multipath scenarios, resolving channels with up to 32 ns multipath delay spread. It uses mixed-signal equalization and carrier recovery in order to minimize the dynamic range requirements of the analog-to-digital converter circuitry. A new mixed-signal carrier phase recovery architecture, utilizing a replica tuning scheme employing Gilbert quad variable-gain amplifiers is introduced. The analog-to-digital converters use an active averaging technique that decouples the preamplifier gain from the averager input range, enabling enhanced suppression of mismatch-induced nonlinearities. These techniques enable a front-end with 6-bit linearity and dynamic range, while dissipating a low power consumption of 55 mW.