Harmonic Signal Rejection Schemes of Polyphase Downconverters

The harmonic signal rejection capability and the rejection schemes of polyphase downconverters are discussed. An analysis of a simple model of a polyphase downconverter shows that n -phase converter can reject up to (n-2)th harmonic signal, and that (n-1)th harmonic signal aliases into the desired signal. It means that the harmonic rejection is not exclusive ability of downconverters with large number of phases, and conventional downconverters with fewer phases have the ability. An example is a differential amplifier type downconverter (n=2), which has the ability of even harmonic signal rejection as common-mode signal. In this paper, the common-mode concept is extended to polyphase circuits. It is named “partial common mode,” because it does not have to be common for all node but is common for a part of nodes. The partial common-mode rejection is effective for harmonic rejection. There is the other type of harmonic rejection techniques for polyphase downconverters, i.e., signal weighting-and-summing type. Comparison between the harmonic rejection with weighting-and-summing circuit and that with the common-mode rejection circuit is discussed, too. Due to its simple structure, a 6-phase downconverter with partial common-mode rejection is attractive for practical wideband receivers.