Low-Flicker-Noise and High-Gain Mixer Using a Dynamic Current-Bleeding Technique

This letter presents a low-flicker-noise and high-gain folded-type mixer using current-reuse and dynamic current-bleeding (DCB) techniques. The current-reuse structure allows the use of the current-bleeding (CB) technique in the folded-type mixer. A local oscillator signal at the IF port dynamically switches the CB circuit, which results in a low flicker noise and high gain. Because the DCB circuit is composed of a common-mode negative-feedback structure, it stabilizes the linearity and noise figure (NF) for process variation and mismatch. The measurements show a double-sideband NF of 8.2 dB at an IF of 10 kHz and a conversion gain of 24.1 dB at 2.1 GHz, while the mixer consumes 2.1 mW from a supply voltage of 1.2 V.