A 200-MHz sub-mA RF front end for wireless hearing aid applications

Author

Deiss, Armin ; Pfaff, Dirk ; Huang, Qiuting

Author_Institution

Integrated Syst. Lab., Swiss Fed. Inst. of Technol., Zurich, Switzerland

Volume

35

Issue

7

fYear

2000

fDate

7/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

977

Lastpage

986

Abstract

A hearing-aid system with RF connection between both ear-pieces is described and its transceiver is introduced. A suitable 200-MHz RF front end has been implemented in a 0.8-/spl mu/m BiCMOS technology. Low power consumption and area constraint were key requirements. The chip comprises a low noise amplifier (LNA), a single balanced mixer, a varactor tuned LC local oscillator with buffer and a 16/17 dual-modulus prescaler. The LNA has a measured gain of 17.5 dB at 200 MHz. The conversion g/sub m/ of the mixer is 1.88 mS. The overall voltage gain and noise figure are 26 dB and 5.2 dB, respectively. The voltage-controlled oscillator´s (VCO´s) phase noise is -104.7 dBc/Hz at an offset of 24 kHz.

Keywords

BiCMOS integrated circuits; biomedical electronics; hearing aids; low-power electronics; mixed analogue-digital integrated circuits; mixers (circuits); transceivers; 0.8 micron; 1.88 mS; 17.5 dB; 200 MHz; 26 dB; 5.2 dB; BiCMOS technology; LC local oscillator; LNA; RF connection; VCO phase noise; dual-modulus prescaler; ear-pieces; low noise amplifier; low power consumption; single balanced mixer; sub-mA RF front end; transceiver; varactor tuned LC LO; voltage-controlled oscillator; wireless hearing aid applications; Auditory system; BiCMOS integrated circuits; Energy consumption; Gain measurement; Local oscillators; Low-noise amplifiers; Radio frequency; Radiofrequency amplifiers; Transceivers; Varactors;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9200

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/4.848206

Filename

848206