A Double notch RF filter architecture for SAW-less GPS receivers

A RF filter architecture is presented in a 130nm BiCMOS process, serving as replacement of the off-chip Surface Acoustic Wave filter in a GPS receiver front-end. The on-chip RF filter achieves a 3dB bandwidth of less than 12MHz at the GPS L₁ center frequency of 1575.42 MHz. It exhibits a steep roll-off characteristic resulting in more than 30dB attenuation at frequencies greater than 30MHz away from the center frequency, matching the performance of most commercial off-chip SAW filters. It is implemented as a single cascode stage and achieves a low power consumption of 8.7mW.