Low-Power Short-Range Radio CMOS Subharmonic RF Front-End Using CG-CS LNA

A 2.4-GHz fully integrated differential RF front-end was designed and implemented using 0.18-mum CMOS process. This design was targeted for low-power and low-cost applications such as short-range radio in biomedical devices. This RF front-end consists of a common-gate common-source low-noise-amplifier, a frequency doubler passive subharmonic mixer, and a resistive source degeneration intermediate frequency buffer. It consumes 2.5 mA from a 1.8-V supply. It occupies 950 mum times500 mum active area, which is only approximately 30% of that of the conventional RF front-end. This subharmonic RF front-end achieves 26-dB conversion gain, 9-dB noise figure and -10-dBm IIP₃.