Design of a novel mixer with high gain and linearity improvement for DRM/DAB applications

Abstract

This paper focuses on a new design of a down-conversion mixer for a low-IF wideband receiver. Based on the folded structure and differential multiple gated transistor (DMGTR) technique, a novel quadrature mixer with a high conversion gain, a moderate linearity, and a moderate NF is proposed. The mixer is designed and implemented in a 0.18-μm CMOS process, and can operate in a frequency range from 150 kHz to 1.5 GHz. The circuit performance is confirmed by both simulation and measurement results. The measurement results exhibit a peak conversion gain of 13.35 dB, a high third order input referred intercept point of 14.85 dBm, and a moderate single side band noise figure of 10.67 dB. Moreover, the whole quadrature mixer core occupies a compact die area of 0.122 mm2. It consumes a current of 3.96 mA (excluding the output buffers) under a single supply voltage of 1.8 V.