Design and analysis of a low-power highly linear mixer

This paper presents the analysis and design of a low power and highly linear mixer topology based on the differential derivative superposition method. The analysis focuses on both nonlinearity and noise performance. The linearisation mechanism is investigated in terms of Taylor series and Volterra series. A prototype mixer has been designed and is to be implemented in 0.18 mum CMOS technology. Simulation shows this mixer achieves 19.7 dBm IIP3 with 1.1 dB power gain, 13.6 dB noise figure at 2.4 GHz and only 3.8 mW power consumption. This performance is competitive with already reported mixers.