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TL1: Modern Receiver Architectures: mixer-first, N-path, and “no-gain” architectures
Abstract:
In this lecture, mixer-first architectures are introduced. These architectures do not use a low noise amplifier, but a low loss passive mixer instead. These passive mixers exhibit very good linearity and also offer the option of narrow-band RF filtering right at the input of the mixer. This makes the mixer-first receiver a good candidate for application where interference is a challenge. The RF filtering is achieved by exploiting the mixer in a so-called N-path filter, which is a filtering technique from forgotten times.
New ideas like higher-order filtering, and passive voltage gain by stacking capacitors, will also be presented in this lecture. An outlook of fully passive receivers, without active linear amplification is also given as a possible future direction.
BIO:
Bram Nauta was born in Hengelo, The Netherlands. In 1987, he received the M.Sc. degree and the Ph.D. degree, both from the University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands. In 1991, he joined the Mixed-Signal Circuits and Systems Department of Philips Research, Eindhoven, the Netherlands. In 1998, he returned to the University of Twente as a full professor, heading the IC Design group, and he was nominated as a distinguished professor in 2014.
He served as the Editor-in-Chief (2007-2010) of the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits (JSSC) and was the 2013 program chair of the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC). He served as the President of the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society (2018-2019 term).