A 0.7-2.7-GHz Blocker-Tolerant Compact-Size Single-Antenna Receiver for Wideband Mobile Applications

Passive-mixer-first receivers have recently demonstrated flexible, low-noise, and high-linearity performance. Likewise, capacitive coupling element antennas have been demonstrated to be a viable choice for mobile handset integration. This paper combines these two advances into a single-antenna wideband receiver that achieves a 0.7-2.7-GHz reception band. The compact-size wideband tunable antenna achieves an efficiency of 45%-69% and occupies a volume of 2500 mm(3). The front-end integrated circuit achieves an input compression point of +5 dBm with a noise figure of 4 dB while occupying only 0.3 mm(2) of active die area. Additionally, an interface impedance study is performed to find the optimal impedances around the passive mixer and to demonstrate the different design tradeoffs of a passive-mixer-first receiver. A local oscillator duty-cycle adjustment circuit and its effect on the receiver performance is also presented.