A 0.7–2.7-GHz Blocker-Tolerant Compact-Size Single-Antenna Receiver for Wideband Mobile Applications

Passive-mixer-first receivers have recently demonstrated flexible, low-noise, and high-linearity performance. Likewise, capacitive coupling element antennas have been demonstrated to be a viable choice for mobile handset integration. This paper combines these two advances into a single-antenna wideband receiver that achieves a 0.7-2.7-GHz reception band. The compact-size wideband tunable antenna achieves an efficiency of 45%-69% and occupies a volume of 2500 mm³. The front-end integrated circuit achieves an input compression point of +5 dBm with a noise figure of 4 dB while occupying only 0.3 mm² of active die area. Additionally, an interface impedance study is performed to find the optimal impedances around the passive mixer and to demonstrate the different design tradeoffs of a passive-mixer-first receiver. A local oscillator duty-cycle adjustment circuit and its effect on the receiver performance is also presented.