8.1 nJ/b 2.4 GHz Short-Range Communication Receiver in 65 nm CMOS

An 8.1 nJ/bit 2.4 GHz receiver with integrated digital baseband supporting O-QPSK DSSS modulation compliant with the IEEE 802.15.4 standard is presented that targets short-range, Internet of Things applications (IoTs). The sensitivity of a wireless communication receiver in general trades with power consumption. This receiver exploits this tradeoff to achieve a total power consumption of 2.02 mW including ADCs and digital baseband processing, at a sensitivity of -52.5 dBm at 250 Kbps. The energy-efficiency of the radio frequency (RF) front-end alone is nearly 2x better than the prior art. The receiver was fabricated in 65 nm CMOS with an area of 0.86 mm².