Low Flicker Noise, Odd-Phase Master LO Active Mixer Using a Low Switching Frequency Scheme

Abstract

This paper presents a new type of flicker noise and mismatch up-converting active mixer with odd cascode switching pairs that require lower switching frequencies. This requirement relaxes the local oscillator (LO) switching speed, which mitigates the effect of flicker noise and IM2 due to parasitic capacitances. A frequency-scalable LO generator is designed to eliminate delay adjustments between the slave LO and master LO signals for multiband operations, and a high crossing master LO driving scheme is also presented for IIP3 improvement for low supply operations. Fabricated using a 0.11 mu m CMOS process at a 1.2 V supply, the proposed mixer achieves < 4 kHz flicker noise corner, 9.4 dBm IIP3 with a 7.2 dB conversion gain, and > 60 dBm IIP2 at an effective LO frequency of 1.8 GHz.