A SAW-Less GSM/GPRS/EDGE Receiver Embedded in 65-nm SoC

Abstract

A quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE receiver, implemented in 65 nm CMOS, complies with the ETSI standard without the need of external SAW filters. By exploring the properties of passive mixers and current-mode operation from RF to baseband, the receiver can achieve a SAW-filter-like selectivity with inexpensive on-chip components such as resistors and capacitors. In addition, to alleviate the linearity bottleneck at the LNA input stage, Class-AB self-bias LNTA is employed to break the conventional trade-off's among NF, linearity and power consumption. For single-to-differential conversion, external LC-CL baluns (instead of on-chip baluns) are used to balance the on-chip die and external BOM cost. This receiver solution is embedded as a part of a cellular phone SoC and achieves ; +1 dBm Out-of-Band Pι dB and consumes 58.9 mA. In FTA test, the receiver passes out-of-band blocker test with >; 4 dB margin.