A CMOS wideband RF front-end with mismatch calibrated harmonic rejection mixer for terrestrial digital TV tuner applications

A wideband direct-conversion RF front-end for Advanced Television Systems Committee terrestrial digital TV (DTV) tuner applications is realized in a 0.18-μm CMOS technology. In order to effectively solve the critical local oscillator (LO) harmonic mixing problem in an ultra-wideband frequency environment of 48860 MHz, the combination of a mismatch calibrated harmonic rejection mixer (HRM) and a simple preceding integrated third-order passive RF tracking filter with an external inductor is utilized to obtain 6080 dB of harmonic rejection for all odd-order harmonic mixing within the DTV spectrum. In addition, an efficient novel calibration algorithm for the HRM is proposed in order to simplify the compensation process. The RF front-end also includes a broadband noise-canceling low-noise amplifier, an attenuator to cover the wide dynamic range, an LO multiphase generator, and peripheral circuits such as an I²C serial interface for digital control. The implemented CMOS RF front-end achieves a total gain of 40 dB, output third-order intercept point of 30 dBm, and noise figure of 5.5 dB while consuming a low power of 140 mW from a 1.8-V supply voltage.