A rapid interference detector for ultra wideband radio systems in 0.13μm CMOS

A broadband low-power down-converter that can rapidly scan the UWB spectrum within several tens of nano-seconds to detect large interferers, is presented. The detector employs cascaded image-reject stages, each consisting of harmonic-rejection mixers, and decomposes the spectrum into 16 equal sub-bands. The LO path uses a single HF input with integer dividers. The IC is in 0.13 mum CMOS. It requires 17 mA in the signal path and 24 mA for the LO path from a 1.2 V VDD, while spanning 1.75 to 8.75 GHz.