Tunable Blocker-Tolerant On-Chip Radio-Frequency Front-End Filter With Dual Adaptive Transmission Zeros for Software-Defined Radio Applications

• Published in: IEEE transactions on microwave theory and techniques Vol. 64; no. 12; pp. 4419 - 4433
• Main Authors: Hasan, M. Naimul, Gu, Qun Jane, Xiaoguang Liu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01.12.2016
• Subjects: <italic xmlns:ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"> <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX"> N </tex-math> </inline-formula> -path; Active filters; Band-pass filters; bandpass (BP); carrier aggregation (CA); CMOS; Filtering theory; Impedance; Microwave filters; Passband; Radio frequency; radio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC); software radios; switched capacitor; transmission zero (TZ); tunable filters
• ISSN: 0018-9480; 1557-9670
• DOI: 10.1109/TMTT.2016.2623707

This paper presents a tunable active bandpass filter (BPF) with adjustable transmission zeros (TZs) close to the passband for software-defined radio (SDR) applications. The RF front-end frequency selectivity is enhanced by the creation of TZs that also improve the out-of-band (OOB) input-referred third-order intercept point (IIP3). The filter is based on two-path signal cancellation and consists of a tunable BPF in parallel with two tunable bandstop filters. This combination ensures the correct amplitude and phase relationships across a wide tuning range to create adjustable TZs without sacrificing the gain of the passband. This paper presents in detail the design considerations and guidelines, as well as analysis of the filter performance in the presence of nonidealities such as parasitics and imperfect clock signal shape. The proposed filter is implemented with high-QN-path filter blocks in a 65-nm CMOS process. The passband of the filter is tunable from 0.1 to 1.4 GHz with a 3-dB bandwidth of 9.8-10.2 MHz, a gain of 21.5-24 dB, a noise figure of 3-4.2 dB, and a total power consumption of 50-73 mW. TZs are created on both sides of the passband with a minimal offset of 25 MHz and are tunable across a 20-MHz range with up to a 60-dB rejection. The measured blocker 1-dB compression point is 8 dBm and the OOB IIP3 is 23 dBm. The reported filter provides a promising on-chip filtering solution for multistandard multifrequency SDR applications with improved interference mitigation capabilities.