A low noise CMOS current folded mixer for direct conversion receivers

Abstract

A current folded mixer achieving low l/f noise for low power direct conversion receivers is proposed. The proposed mixer topology decouples the design tradeoffs between noise figure, conversion gain and third order intermodulation distortion. Comparisons with the conventional current-reuse injection topology, the current folded mixer with l/f noise minimized shows significant improvements. Experimental design on 2.4-GHz band and with 0.18-mum CMOS technology has revealed the advantages of the newly proposed topology.