A 65nm CMOS 282μW 915MHz direct conversion receiver front-end

This paper presents an inductorless ultra-low power radio receiver front-end intended for applications such as sensor networks and medical implants. It consists of low noise amplifier, quadrature mixer, and a frequency divider for the generation of quadrature local oscillator signals. The power consumption is just 282μW from a 0.9V supply when it operates in the 915 MHz ISM band It achieves a total gain of 30dB and a noise figure below 9dB. Manufactured in 65nm CMOS, the active area is 0.016mm². In a 200Ω environment it achieves a -17dB S11 without any external matching network.