Design of 1.8-mW PLL-Free 2.4-GHz Receiver Utilizing Temperature-Compensated FBAR Resonator

• Published in: IEEE journal of solid-state circuits Vol. 53; no. 6; pp. 1628 - 1639
• Main Authors: Wang, Keping, Qiu, Lei, Koo, Jabeom, Ruby, Richard, Otis, Brian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01.06.2018; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: 24 GHz; Acoustic noise; balun LNA; Broadband; Bulk acoustic wave devices; Channelization; Colpitts oscillator; current reuse; Film bulk acoustic resonators; Frequency conversion; image rejection; Inductors; low power; mixer; noise cancelling; Noise levels; Oscillators; Phase locked loops; Phase locked systems; phase-locked loop (PLL) free; Radio frequency; Receivers; resonator; Resonators; sliding IF; temperature compensated; thin film bulk acoustic-wave resonator (FBAR); Thin films; wideband; ZigBee
• ISSN: 0018-9200; 1558-173X
• DOI: 10.1109/JSSC.2018.2801829

This paper presents a 1.8-mW 2.4-GHz channelized receiver for ISM-band applications. Unlike traditional ISM-band radios which typically require a phase-locked loop (PLL) for channelization, we propose a modified sliding-IF receiver architecture with a suitable local oscillator (LO) frequency plan utilizing a temperature-compensated thin film bulk acoustic-wave resonator (FBAR). This strategy completely eliminates the need for a PLL by directly dividing down the fixed FBAR oscillator frequency. An inductor-less current-reuse balun LNA is proposed allowing a low-power wideband matching as well as noise cancelling. The frequency conversion is achieved by a hybrid mixer, which stacks a switching mixer on a switched-<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">g_{m} </tex-math></inline-formula> mixer for current reuse. It also features good voltage headroom and common-mode noise rejection. The FBAR-based Colpitts oscillator achieves the phase noise of −144 dBc/Hz at 3.5-MHz offset. The measured RX gain, noise figure, and in-band IIP 3 are 57.8 dB, 15.7 dB, and −18.5 dBm, respectively, without external crystal and on-chip inductors, which allows us to reduce the size and weight of the receiver system. It dissipates 0.86 mW (RX) and 0.92 mW (LO) from a single 1-V supply.