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Abstract

A low voltage silicon bipolar RF (radio frequency) receiver front end includes a low noise preamplifier and double-balanced mixer. The receiver incorporates monolithic microstrip transformers for significant improvements in performance compared with silicon broadband designs. Reactive feedback and coupling elements are used in place of resistors to lower the front end noise figure through the reduction of resistor thermal noise, and this also allows both circuits to operate at supply voltages below 2 volts. Circuits fabricated using 0.8 .mu.m Bipolar CMOS technology provide a peak npn transistor transit frequency f.sub.T of 11 GHz. At a supply voltage of 1.9 volts, the measured input third order intercept point is +2.3 dBm with a 10.9 dB single-sideband noise figure. Power dissipated is less than 5 mW. The low noise amplifier input intercept is -3 dBm with a 2.8 dB noise figure and 0.5 dB gain. Power dissipation of the preamplifier is less than 4 mW from a 1.9 V supply.

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First Claim