A 0.46-mm² 4-dB NF Unified Receiver Front-End for Full-Band Mobile TV in 65-nm CMOS

A unified receiver front-end (RFE) for mobile TV covering the VHF-III, UHF and L bands is described. Performance, power and area efficiencies are advanced in threefold: 1) a gain-boosting current-balancing balun-LNA exhibits high linearity, wideband output balancing and adequate S11against gain control; 2) a current-reuse mixer-low-pass-filter merges quadrature-/harmonic-rejection mixing and third-order current-mode post-filtering in one block, enhancing linearity and noise just where both are demanding, while saving power and area for its simplicity; 3) a direct injection-locked 4-/8-phase LO generator relaxes the master LO frequency by avoiding frequency division. Fabricated in 65-nm CMOS the RFE measures 4-dB noise figure, 17-to-35-dB gain range, and +32/-3.4-dBm IIP2/IIP3 with no tuning. The power consumption ranges from 43 (170 MHz) to 55 mW (1.7 GHz) at 1.2-/2.5-V supplies. The die size is 0.46 mm2.