A Low-Power CMOS Receiver for 5 GHz WLAN

Mobile devices demand low-power WiFi receivers for extended battery lifetime. This paper presents the design of an 11.6-mW receiver including baseband channel selection filtering that targets the IEEE802.11a standard. A 1-to-6 on-chip transformer serves as a low-noise amplifier with zero power dissipation and high linearity while providing ESD protection and differential outputs. The co-design of the transformer and the passive mixers leads to an efficient front end. Realized in 65-nm CMOS technology, the prototype exhibits a noise figure of 6 dB and a sensitivity of -66 dBm at a data rate of 54 Mb/s from 5 GHz to 5.9 GHz. A new analysis of fully-differential current-driven passive mixers is also presented to facilitate the design of the front end.