An 11-Mb/s 2.1-mW Synchronous Superregenerative Receiver at 2.4 GHz

This paper presents a low-voltage low-power high-speed superregenerative receiver operating in the 2.4-GHz industrial-scientific-medical band. The receiver uses an architecture in which, thanks to the presence of a phase-locked loop, the quench oscillator is operated synchronously with the received data at a quench frequency equal to the data rate. This mode of operation has several benefits. Firstly, the traditional problem of poor selectivity in this type of receiver is to a large extent overcome. Secondly, considerably higher data rates can be achieved than with classical receivers. Thirdly, the bit envelope can be matched to the superregenerative oscillator, which improves sensitivity. The receiver includes an RF front end optimized to support high quench frequencies at low supply voltages, responding to todays increasing demand for high speed and low power consumption. The prototype implemented is very simple and achieves a data rate of 11 Mb/s with a current consumption of 1.75 mA at a supply voltage of 1.2 V - an excellent tradeoff between cost, performance, and power consumption.