RF receiver front-end with +3dBm out-of-band IIP3 and 3.4dB NF in 45nm CMOS for 3G and beyond

Abstract

A receiver front-end in standard 45 nm CMOS technology is presented. The receiver achieves WCDMA system performance without requirement for an inter-stage SAW filter. High out-of-band linearity performance is achieved by reducing the RF circuitry and filtering the out-of-band blockers after direct conversion. For the receiver at 1.9 GHz, a +3.1 dBm IIP3 is achieved for blockers at 40 MHz and 80 MHz away from the RF carrier. NF is 3.4 dB, out-of-band IIP2 is +51 dBm and current is 19.5 mA for both I, Q channels with VDD of 1.4 V. LO is provided using an on-chip VCO followed by a quadrature divider.