A 9mW direct RF sampling GPS receiver front-end in 0.13µm BiCMOS

A direct RF sampling GPS receiver front-end is presented in a 130nm BiCMOS process, occupying less than 2mm2 of die area. Downconversion of the GPS L1 signal is achieved by subsampling rather than by mixing. The number of building blocks and the complexity of the subsampling receiver are lower than of a conventional heterodyne GPS receiver with comparable performance metrics. The total power consumption from a supply voltage of 1.2V is less than 9mW. The total receiver NF is 3.8dB, the lowest reported NF of a subsampling receiver at this level of power consumption. The NF penalty due to subsampling is less than 1dB.