A 2.4-GHz Sub-mW CMOS receiver front-end for wireless sensors network

A 2.4-GHz fully integrated CMOS receiver front-end using current-reused folded-cascode circuit scheme is presented. A configuration utilizing vertically stacked low-noise amplifier (LNA) and a folded-cascode mixer is proposed to improve both conversion gain and noise figure suitable for sub-mW receiver circuits. The proposed front-end achieves a conversion gain of 31.5 dB and a noise figure of 11.8 dB at 10 MHz with 500-mu A bias current from a 1.0-V power supply. The conversion gain and noise figure improvements of the proposed front-end over a conventional merged LNA and single-balanced mixer are 11 dB and 7.2 dB at 10 MHz, respectively, with the same power consumption of 500 mu W.