Fundamentals of Modern RF Wireless Receivers: A Short Tutorial

To be compliant with multistandard applications, the RF front end of a modern transceiver must satisfy several challenging tasks such as large operative bandwidth, low noise, and high linearity. Over the years, addressing such requirements has significantly changed the radio architecture toward an ultimate solution based on current mode signal processing and passive mixers. In this article, after a brief description of the typical structure of a wireless receiver, voltage and current mode signal processing will be compared showing why a fully current-mode approach is more suitable in deep-scaled CMOS technologies [1], [2].