An MMIC receiver front-end design for 2.4GHz frequency band applications in 0.2μm GaAs pseudomorphic HEMT process

A 2.4-GHz radio receiver front-end for ISM-band applications incorporating the superheterodyne architecture is designed and simulated in 0.2 μm GaAs pseudomorphic HEMT technology. It features an ultra low-noise cascode-topology highly-integrated amplifier followed by an external image-rejection band-pass filter and an active half-Gilbert-cell down-conversion mixer with an IF frequency of 340 MHz. The receiver chain showed a gain, noise figure and input-referred third-order intercept-point equal to 17.9 dB, 1.8 dB and -18 dBm, respectively. Operating in 3-volt DC supply, it draws a 33-mA current. Finally, the characteristics of this front-end are compared in brief with those of a front-end of the same topology, but in a different process.