Analysis and design of a 1.3-mW current-reuse RF front-end for the MICS band

This paper presents a wide-band low-power super-heterodyne RF front-end for the Medical Implant Communications Services (MICS) band. The front-end consists of a low-noise amplifier (LNA), a mixer, buffers, and passive baluns. The proposed circuits feature the techniques of current-reuse, MOSFET back-gate coupling, feedback, and current bleeding to achieve low power under acceptable noise figure (NF) levels for the MICS application. The RF front-end is implemented in 0.18um standard CMOS process with an area of 1.4mm×1.2mm at a supply voltage of 1.8V. Measurement results reveal the capability of a minimum sensitivity of -97dBm, maximum conversion gain of 30dB, and total noise figure (NF) of 11.6 and 13.2 dB while consuming 1.3mW and 2.9mW, respectively.