A Low Power Ultra-Wideband RF Receiver Front-End using a Differential N-Path Notch Filter

Abstract

A low power ultra-wideband (UWB) RF receiver using two N-path notch filters is presented. The receiver architecture composes of two N-path notch filter systems as a Miller feedback network around a low noise amplifier (LNA). The used differential notch switching filter structure provides filtering at the input of the RF front-end, in addition to even-order harmonic suppression. Moreover, the differential N-path notch filter downconverts the RF signal to the baseband (BB) by using a set of $G_{m}$ cell stages. The RF receiver can operate in the frequency range of 3.1-4.8 GHz and is implemented in a 65nm CMOS process. The simulation results show that the receiver achieves a noise figure (NF) of less than 5.5 dB, a conversion gain of 61 dB over the band of interest while consuming less than 12 mW from a 1-V supply, including the local oscillator (LO) current.