A 170 MHz RF front-end for ERMES pager applications

Author

Piazza, Francesco ; Huang, Qiuting

Author_Institution

Integrated Syst. Lab., Swiss Federal Inst. of Technol., Zurich, Switzerland

Volume

30

Issue

12

fYear

1995

fDate

12/1/1995 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1430

Lastpage

1437

Abstract

A 170 MHz RF front-end for ERMES pager applications has been implemented in a 1.2 μm BiCMOS technology. The chip comprises a low noise amplifier with AGC, a double balanced mixer, a varactor tuned LC local oscillator, and an IF strip containing an AGC amplifier and a double balanced mixer with integrated active output filter. The LNA has a measured gain of 22.3 dB at 170 MHz with a usable AGC range of approximately 20 dB while the conversion transconductance of the mixer is 130 μS. This front-end is suitable for direct conversion and superheterodyne pager receivers, and its noise figure is 6.2 dB. Low power operation has been achieved with the front-end drawing 230 μA at 3 V, which is compatible with the intended application in wrist-watch style pagers

Keywords

BiCMOS analogue integrated circuits; VHF amplifiers; VHF oscillators; automatic gain control; mixers (circuits); paging communication; superheterodyne receivers; 1.2 micron; 170 MHz; 22.3 dB; 230 muA; 3 V; 6.2 dB; AGC; BiCMOS technology; ERMES pager applications; IF strip; RF front-end; conversion transconductance; direct conversion receivers; double balanced mixer; low noise amplifier; superheterodyne pager receivers; varactor tuned LC local oscillator; wrist-watch style pagers; Active filters; Active noise reduction; BiCMOS integrated circuits; Gain measurement; Local oscillators; Low-noise amplifiers; Radio frequency; Radiofrequency amplifiers; Strips; Varactors;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9200

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/4.482190

Filename

482190