Linearity Enhancement Techniques in Radio Receiver Front-Ends

A key role in determining the overall performance of a communication link is played by the linearity of the analog sections of the transmitter and the receiver. Nonlinearity in the receiver can impact performance in several ways, including degradation in sensitivity, reduction in gain, and the appearance of spurious energy within the frequency band of interest from out-of-band sources. An overview of circuit and architectural techniques for enhancing receiver front-end linearity is presented. Two types of techniques are described, those that rely on device or circuit level linearization, through reduction of nonlinear coefficients, and those that rely on attenuation of undesirable interferers.