A SiGe active sub-harmonic receiver front-end for 5-6 GHz wireless applications

A silicon germanium (IBM 5HP technology) RF front-end for direct-conversion receiver applications has been designed, fabricated, and tested. The front-end is intended for use in the U.S. 5-6 GHz Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure (U-NII) bands. The front-end is composed of an LNA, I and Q x2 sub-harmonic mixers (SHMs), and an LO conditioning chain. The receiver is completely differential and is designed for operation from a 3.3 V supply. The current consumption is /spl sim/6 mA for the LNA and /spl sim/5 mA for each mixer. Measured receiver performance (with LNA) shows 18-20 dB conversion gain in the lower two U-NII bands, -16 dBm input compression point, and >10 dB return loss across all three U-NII bands.