Distortion cancellation by polyphase multipath circuits

It is well known that in balanced (or differential) circuits, all even harmonics are canceled. This cancellation is achieved by using two paths and exploiting phase differences of 180° between the paths. The question addressed in this paper is: what distortion products (harmonics and intermodulation products) are canceled if more than two paths (and phases) are used? These circuits are called polyphase multipath circuits. It turns out that the more paths (and phases) are used, the more distortion products are canceled. Unfortunately, some intermodulation products cannot be canceled without also canceling the desired signal. An analysis of the impact of mismatch between the paths shows that the suppression of distortion products will be larger if more paths are used. As an application example, the design of an upconversion mixer with a clean output spectrum is presented.