paper 150228100656

A high gain, high linearity, low noise I/Q up-conversion mixer and a programmable gain power pre-amplifier are designed in a standard 0.18 µm CMOS process, which are both the critical building blocks in a transmitter for UHF RFID reader systems. To comply with the system specifications, both low noise figure (NF) and high LO-IF isolation for the up-conversion mixer are required, so the I/Q mixer topology based on two coupled double-balanced Gilbert cells is applied. Besides, other techniques such as the pseudo-differential structure and the ac- tive load are also used to improve its linearity, gain, etc.. As for the power pre-amplifier, a programmable gain fully differential cascode configuration is employed to satisfy the emission spectrum requirements from various application environments. A 3-bit control word is used to switch the three parallel trans-conductance transistors in each side to change the output power flexibly. And the source inductance negative feedback technique is adopted to achieve a good trade-off among noise matching, impedance matching, linearity and gain. From a single 1.8 V power supply, simulation results show that the up-conversion mixer has a total conversion gain of 4 dB, an input 1 dB compression point (IP1 dB) of 4.84 dBm, and an input NF of less than 20.9 dB. The power pre-amplifier has an output 1 dB compression point (OP1 dB) of better than 2.8 dBm, a gain of above 7 dB, and a good input impedance matching.

Citation

Debo Wang, Cheng-Hong Dong, Luo-Si Gao, Yufeng Guo, Changchun Zhang, and Yi Zhang, "A CMOS I/Q Up-conversion Mixer and a Power Pre-amplifier for UHF RFID Reader Systems," Proceedings of 2015 Photonics & Electromagnetics Research Symposium, Prague, July 6 - 9，Page(s)125-129

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