A 0.5-V 5.8-GHz ultra-low-power RF transceiver for wireless sensor network in 65nm CMOS

This paper proposes the RF CMOS transceiver that is suitable for wireless sensor network applications. To reduce the size of the antenna, target frequency is chosen to be 5.8 GHz band, therefore proposed transceiver has potentiality to achieve ultra-small size wireless sensor module. Supply voltage of 0.5V can reduce the power consumption of overall RF transceiver. Current-reuse VCO and injection-locked frequency divider can enable ultra-low-power consumption of the PLL. In order to achieve both low power and high sensitivity, uncertain-IF and active mixer first architecture of the receiver are employed. Inverter-based topology of the transmitter is suitable for low supply voltage. The prototype transceiver was fabricated in 65 nm CMOS process, and the transmitter achieved EVM of 12.6% while consuming 2.86 mW including the PLL, and the receiver realizes sensitivity of −75 dBm while consuming 0.83 mW including the local oscillator.