RF Transceiver Design

Lecture 49
Mixer Design - VIII

Prof. Darshak Bhatt

Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering

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Operation of Passive Mixers LO1

• Each TIA has a single-ended input impedance denoted as ZBB.

• The effective LO signals, denoted as S1(t), S2(t), ..., are similar to LO1,
LO2, ... but toggle between 0 and 1.
• The Fourier series representation of the effective LO signals vRF LO2

𝑆1 𝑡 = σ∞ 𝑗𝑛𝜔𝐿𝑂𝑡 LO3
𝑛=−∞ 𝑎𝑛 𝑒

𝑗𝑛𝜋
iRF
−
𝑆2 𝑡 = σ∞
𝑛=−∞ 𝑎𝑛 𝑒 2 𝑒^(𝑗𝑛𝜔𝐿𝑂 𝑡)

𝑆3 𝑡 = σ∞
𝑛=−∞ 𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑛 𝑒
−𝑗𝑛𝜋 𝑗𝑛𝜔𝐿𝑂𝑡
𝑒 LO1 LO4
𝑗𝑛𝜋
𝑆4 𝑡 = σ∞
𝑛=−∞ 𝑎𝑛 𝑒 2 𝑒^(𝑗𝑛𝜔𝐿𝑂 𝑡) LO2
𝑗𝑛𝜋
𝑒− 4 𝑛 LO3
𝑎𝑛 = 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑐( )
4 4
LO4

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• Since a given switch is on only at one-quarter of a cycle, for the corresponding branch, the
I switch toggled by LO1, 𝑖𝐵𝐵𝐼+ = 𝑆1 𝑡 𝑖𝑅𝐹 (𝑡)
• This baseband current in turn creates a voltage across the input of the TIA.
• This baseband voltage is only transparent to the RF input when S1 is 1, and thus is
effectively multiplied by S1 when monitoring the RF voltage.
• Considering all the four branches and switch resistance, 𝑣𝐵𝐵𝐼+ = [𝑆1 𝑡 𝑖𝑅𝐹 (𝑡)] ∗ 𝑧𝐵𝐵(𝑡)
• The Fourier transform of Sk(t) X {[Sk(t)iRF(t)] ∗ zBB(t)} is:

vRF t = 𝑅𝑆𝑊 𝑖𝑅𝐹 𝑡 + σ4𝑘=1 𝑆𝑘 𝑡 × {𝑣𝐵𝐵𝐼+ + [𝑆1 𝑡 𝑖𝑅𝐹 (𝑡)] ∗ 𝑍𝐵𝐵(𝑡)}

𝑗 𝑛+𝑚 𝑘−1 𝜋
−
σ∞ ∞
𝑚=−∞ σ𝑛=−∞ 𝑒 2 𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑚 𝐼𝑅𝐹 𝜔 − 𝑛 + 𝑚 𝜔𝐿𝑂 𝑍𝐵𝐵 (𝜔 − 𝜔𝐿𝑂)

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• The RF voltage can be written as:
∞
vRF t = 𝑅𝑆𝑊 𝐼𝑅𝐹 𝜔 + ෍ 𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑚 𝐼𝑅𝐹 𝜔 − 𝑛 + 𝑚 𝜔𝐿𝑂 𝑍𝐵𝐵 (𝜔 − 𝑛𝜔𝐿 )
𝑚,𝑛=−∞
• If the RF current is a sinusoid at a frequency of ωLO + ωm, then the RF voltage has its main
component at ωLO + ωm, receiver provides some modest filtering, then, n + m = 0, and we have:
• The impedance seen at the RF input node as:
vRF 𝜔 = 𝑅𝑆𝑊 𝐼𝑅𝐹 𝜔 + 4 σ∞ 2
𝑛=−∞ 𝑎𝑛 𝐼𝑅𝐹 (𝜔) 𝑍𝐵𝐵 (𝜔 − 𝑛𝜔𝐿)}
• Which indicates that the TIA input impedance appears at RF, at around the LO frequency and its
harmonics.

𝑍𝐵𝐵

0 −𝑓𝐿𝑂 0 + 𝑓𝐿𝑂

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• In the vicinity of ωLO, we have
2
Z𝐼𝑁 𝜔 ≈ 𝑅𝑆𝑊 + ( 2)[𝑍𝐵𝐵 (𝜔 + 𝜔𝐿𝑂) + 𝑍𝐵𝐵(𝜔 + 𝜔𝐿𝑂)]
𝜋
• The baseband impedance is transformed to the input around ωLO.
• Accordingly, if the baseband impedance is lowpass, the corresponding RF input
sees a bandpass impedance, whose center frequency is precisely set by the LO.
• This property may be utilized to create low-noise narrowband filters, often
called N-path filters.

5
Noise Considerations in Passive Mixers
Minimal Noise with Non-overlapping LO Signals
• Passive mixers with non-overlapping LO signals have minimal noise contributions.
• Switches in the Triode region with zero bias current have negligible 1/f noise
contribution.
• Well-designed passive mixers typically exhibit negligible 1/f noise.
Understanding Thermal Noise Contribution
• At any given time, only one switch is active, and its resistance and noise are in
series with the current from the gm cell.
• This noise voltage's spectral density is 4KTRSW (RSW is the switch
resistance).
• The current noise spectral density is 4KTRSW/|ZL|^2.
• If the gm cell is ideal (𝑍𝐿 is infinite), switches contribute almost no
noise.
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Impact of Switch Mismatches
• Mismatches between switches can lead to leakage of flicker noise of the gm stage to the output.
2 𝑉𝑂𝑆
• The leakage gain is , Where OS is the input-referred offset voltage, and S X T is the normalized
𝑆×𝑇
slope of LO signals.
• High-pass filtering, such as a blocking capacitor can suppress this noise.

gm
ZL

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Linearity in Current-Mode Passive Mixers
• Superior Linearity Compared to Active Mixers
• Passive mixers in the current domain, with impedance transformation properties, offer
superior linearity compared to active mixers.
• Fig. demonstrates the scenario of a small desired signal with a large blocker.

ZBB
gm
ZBB

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Impedance Transformation and Small Input Impedance
• If the TIA presents a very small input impedance to the switches and switch resistance is
low, the gm cell sees a small impedance at its output.
• This ensures a small swing at the gm cell output.
• A large capacitance at the TIA input creates a bandpass filter that suppresses the blocker.
• Downconversion shifts the signal to DC, while the blocker remains at a higher frequency.
• Lowpass filtering easily suppresses the blocker.
• Ensuring the filtering does not affect the desired signal is typically feasible due to the
large ratio of blocker offset to signal bandwidth (5–10 times).

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Trade-offs and Design Considerations
• Larger switch size leads to more blocker suppression however, mixer buffer
power consumption is increased.
• Designing the TIA is critical, particularly for maintaining a low input impedance.
• Blocker tolerance is substantially enhanced compared to traditional voltage-
mode receivers.

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Second-Order Distortion in Passive Mixers
• Passive mixers exhibit second-order distortion mechanisms similar to active mixers.
• These mechanisms include:
• Direct leakage of IM2 components due to mismatches among the mixer switches (leakage gain:
2 VOS /( S*T)).
• RF-to-LO coupling in the downconversion mixer (leading to IIP2 = 2 * S * T / πα) where α is the
leakage gain.
• Nonlinearity of the mixer switches caused by β and threshold voltage mismatches.
• Attenuation of IM2 Components
• Series capacitors between the LNA/RF gm cell and the switches
attenuate IM2 components generated inside the LNA, preventing
their contribution to receiver IIP2.
• IM2 sources may contribute to IIP2 by modulating the resistance
of the mixer switches and affecting their on/off timing.

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Modulation of Switch Resistance vs. Timing
• Modulating the resistance of switches has a more significant impact on IM2 products
than modulating the switch timing.
• Passive mixer switches are clocked by rail-to-rail signals with fast rise and fall times,
minimizing timing-related distortions.
Conclusion
• A properly designed passive mixer with 25% clocking is expected to have a reasonably
small contribution to IIP2 from the mixer switches.

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TIA Design Choices for Passive Mixers
Drawbacks of Simple TIA Configuration
• A basic TIA configuration with a pair of resistors (RBB) suffers from a fundamental trade-
off.
• The mixer’s overall gain and TIA input impedance are both determined by RBB.
• High gain and low input impedance cannot be simultaneously achieved.
𝑅𝐿 2
• The mixer total conversion gain is 𝑔𝑚 2 𝑅𝐵𝐵
𝑅𝐿 + 𝑅𝐵𝐵 𝜋
LO1 𝜋2
2
𝜋

LO2
RF gm
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• Overcoming the Trade-Off
• To break the trade-off, two alternatives are considered:
• Common-gate amplifier.
• Opamp in feedback configuration.
• Both choices offer an input resistance of approximately 1/gmBB, where gmBB is the input device
transconductance.
• Large input capacitance keeps TIA input impedance low at the blocker offset frequency.
2CF
CF RF
RF
+ +
- -
CF

Resistor

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• Gain Independence and Linearity
• The gain is now set independently by the load or feedback
resistor (RF).
𝑅𝐿 2
• Mixer gain expression: 𝑔𝑚 𝑅𝐹
2 𝜋
𝑅𝐿 + 𝑔
𝜋 2 𝑚𝐵𝐵

• Gain and input impedance can be adjusted independently.

• Feedback capacitor sets TIA bandwidth, acting as a single-
pole RC filter.

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• Comparing Common-Gate and Opamp Configurations
• The common-gate (CG) structure tends to be smaller since it requires four times
less differential load capacitance for the same bandwidth.
• Opamp-based design may offer superior linearity.
• CG structure may introduce noise from the current source, which can be
replaced with a resistor or large devices to mitigate flicker noise.
• Opamp choice can be a two-stage or complementary single-stage structure,
However, Opamp must have sufficient bandwidth to ensure good linearity for
all blocker frequencies.

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