A High Performance Low IF Receiver for Wireless Local Positioning Applications

This work demonstrates an integrated low noise, high gain receiver targeted for wireless local positioning applications. The receiver is implemented in a 0.18 mum SiGe BiCMOS technology. With a single ended input and differential output the receiver comprises a two stage bipolar low noise amplifier with integrated on-chip transformer for single to differential conversion and a double balanced mixer based on folded Gilbert cell architecture. The LNA and mixer circuits are integrated through wire bonding. According to the system frequency planning, RF and IF frequency bands of the receiver are 5.725 GHz to 5.875 GHz and 500 kHz to 5 MHz. At 5.8 GHz RF and 5 MHz IF, the integrated receiver performance comprise 28 dB power gain, 34 dB voltage gain, 2.3 dB noise figure, -30 dBm of input power at 1 dB gain compression and -24 dBm input third order intercept point. The low noise and high gain performance of the proposed receiver topology makes it to be an optimum choice for the targeted local positioning application based on frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar.