Charge-Domain Signal Processing of Direct RF Sampling Mixer with Discrete-Time Filters in Bluetooth and GSM Receivers

RF circuits for multi-GHz frequencies have recently migrated to low-cost digital deep-submicron CMOS processes. Unfortunately, this process environment, which is optimized only for digital logic and SRAM memory, is extremely unfriendly for conventional analog and RF designs. We present fundamental techniques recently developed that transform the RF and analog circuit design complexity to digitally intensive domain for a wireless RF transceiver, so that it enjoys benefits of digital and switched-capacitor approaches. Direct RF sampling techniques allow great flexibility in reconfigurable radio design. Digital signal processing concepts are used to help relieve analog design complexity, allowing one to reduce cost and power consumption in a reconfigurable design environment. The ideas presented have been used in Texas Instruments to develop two generations of commercial digital RF processors: a single-chip Bluetooth radio and a single-chip GSM radio. We further present details of the RF receiver front end for a GSM radio realized in a 90-nm digital CMOS technology. The circuit consisting of low-noise amplifier, transconductance amplifier, and switching mixer offers 32.5 dB dynamic range with digitally configurable voltage gain of 40 dB down to 7.5 dB. A series of decimation and discrete-time filtering follows the mixer and performs a highly linear second-order lowpass filtering to reject close-in interferers. The front-end gains can be configured with an automatic gain control to select an optimal setting to form a trade-off between noise figure and linearity and to compensate the process and temperature variations. Even under the digital switching activity, noise figure at the 40 dB maximum gain is 1.8 dB and +50 dBm IIP2 at the 34 dB gain. The variation of the input matching versus multiple gains is less than 1 dB. The circuit in total occupies 3.1mm2. The LNA, TA, and mixer consume less than 15.3mA at a supply voltage of 1.4 V.