Abstract
This paper presents an ultra-wideband (UWB) down-conversion mixer with low-noise, high-gain and small-size. The negative impedance technique and source input method are applied for the proposed mixer. The negative impedance achieves the dynamic current injection and increases the mixer output impedance, which reduces the mixer flicker noise and increases its conversion gain. The source input method allows the input matching networks to be cancelled, avoiding the noise and loss introduced by the matching resistors, saving the chip area occupied by the matching inductors. The proposed mixer is designed in 45-nm SOI process provided by GlobalFoundries. The simulation results show a conversion gain of 11.4–14.3 dB, ranging from 3.1 to 10.6 GHz, a minimum noise figure of 9.8 dB, a RF port return loss of less than −11 dB, a port-to-port isolation of better than −48 dB, and a core chip area of 0.16 × 0.16 mm2. The power consumption from a 1 V supply voltage is 2.85 mW.
Highlights
Since the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) opened the 3.1–10.6 GHz frequency band for ultra-wideband (UWB) applications in 2002 [1], UWB technology has received significant interest and has been actively researched in academia and industry
The mixers proposed in [5,6] use a bulk injection method that the radio frequency (RF) and local oscillation (LO) signals are applied to the gate and bulk respectively
A novel mixer with the negative impedance technique and source input method is proposed for UWB applications
Summary
Since the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) opened the 3.1–10.6 GHz frequency band for ultra-wideband (UWB) applications in 2002 [1], UWB technology has received significant interest and has been actively researched in academia and industry. The mixers proposed in [5,6] use a bulk injection method that the radio frequency (RF) and local oscillation (LO) signals are applied to the gate and bulk respectively It shows a low supply voltage and power consumption, but it increases the noise figure of the mixer due to the large bulk resistance of MOS transistors. A crosscoupled pMOS pair, which is a negative impedance, is used for current injection It improves the noise and conversion gain of the Gilbert-cell mixer without any penalty in the linearity and bandwidth. The method of inputting RF signal from the gate of the transconductance stage will result in complicated networks for impedance matching, including numerous resistors and inductors This will introduce much noise and loss, which restricts the mixer performance in broadband applications and needs to be improved.
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