CMOS RF receiver system design: a systematic approach

A unified system-level design methodology for highly integrated CMOS radio frequency receiver design is introduced. This complete system-level design methodology is targeted to minimize the total power consumption of the receiver. System-level design techniques which can be used to derive the overall receiver radio specifications and study noise and linearity performance of receivers are presented. Then, a few circuit examples of building blocks in receiver signal chain are analyzed to show a linear relationship between power and dynamic range of the blocks. The result is then used to derive the optimal system specification distribution among receiver signal chain building blocks yielding the minimum total receiver power consumption for a given system performance. The theory and an actual CMOS Bluetooth receiver design are compared showing very good agreement.