A RF front-end for DVB-SH based on current conveyors. Issue 7 (July 2015) - García-Vázquez, H.
Abstract Inductors are used extensively in Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits to design matching networks, load circuits of voltage controlled oscillators, filters, mixers and many other RF circuits. However, on-chip inductors are large and cannot be ported easily from one process to the next. Due to modern CMOS scaling, inductorless RF design is rapidly becoming possible. In this paper a new methodology for designing the RF frontend necessary for the DVB-SH in a 90 nm CMOS technology based on the use current conveyors (CC) is presented. The RF frontend scheme is composed of a second generation CC (CCII) LNA with asymmetric input and output, an asymmetric to differential converter, and a passive differential mixer followed by two CCII transimpedance amplifiers to obtain a high gain conversion. Measurements show a conversion gain of 20.8 dB, a 14.5 dB noise figure, an input return loss (S11) of −14.3 dB and an output compression point of −3.9 dBm. This combination draws 28.4 mW from a ±1.2 V supply.