A low power folded RF front-end with low flicker noise for direct conversion receiver

This paper presents the implementation and performance measurements of RF front-end to reduce the flicker noise and power consumption in TSMC 0.18 um process for 2.4 GHz ISM band. The proposed RF front-end is composed of folded mixers and differential low noise amplifiers (LNA). Gilbert-cell mixers using the folded technique have been designed for low flicker noise and low power consumption. The proposed RF front-end is implemented by using PMOS devices in switching stage of mixers with a resonating inductor for low flicker noise. The proposed RF front-end consumes 7.34 mW from 1.2 V supply voltage, while conversion gain of 23 dB is achieved. The IIP3 is -7.4 dBm, and the proposed RF front-end has good linearity. Flicker noise of 10 dB at 1 kHz is acceptable value, and thus proposed RF front-end can be used in direct conversion receiver for a narrow bandwidth.