EE 5390
RFIC Design Project
Juan Escalera and Hector Garces
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this project is to employ the knowledge gather in EE 5390 class to
design two CMOS integrated circuits; a Low Noise Amplifier and a Mixer to be used in
RF wireless applications. This project will be implemented using the Agilent Electronic
Design Automation (EDA) product; Advanced Design System (ADS) software for highfrequency system, circuit, and modeling applications tool.
To review and understand designs developed for other authors, several IEEE
papers and technical books were read and then we select a circuit to be implemented in
ADS. Multiple simulations were developed in order to tune up our designs for project
specifications. For LNA; Frequency Range, Voltage Gain and Noise Figure were
satisfied. Magnitude of input impedance is close to specification, but phase is almost π
radians. Total current is much bigger than the project stipulation. We were not able to
measure the IIP3 and P1dB. For Mixer all specifications were satisfied.
INTRODUCTION
The project consist in the design of 2 of the most important sub-circuits in an RF
front end. These blocks are the LNA and the mixer. The focus of the LNA design is on
the voltage gain, and the input impedance as this block has to be matched to the antenna
of the transceiver. The LNA must provide amplification without adding noise to the low
power signal received from the antenna (in the order of 10 to 100 V). The amplifier
must be linear enough to avoid the distortion from blocking signals. The specifications
are:
 Frequency Range: 940 MHz to 980 MHz
 Input Impedance: Magnitude 50   10%, Phase 0  2.5
 Voltage gain > 20 dB
 Total Current < 5mA
For the mixer design, the purpose of this block is to perform frequency conversion
from the incoming RF signal to the low IF frequency, by multiplying it by the LO
frequency specified. The specifications for the mixer design are presented:
 RF input 0.001sin(2fRFt) volts, where fRF is 960 MHz
 LO (positive node) 2+0.2 sin(2fLOt), where fLO is 950 MHz
 LO (negative node) 2-0.2 sin(2fLOt), where fLO is 950 MHz
METODOLOGY
Initially, we spend some sessions working with ADS to get familiarity with the
basic function like; create a new project and design, use the component pallet list, know
the simulation options, design guide, etc. Then, we were able to use ADS to plot a curve
family for CMOS transistors.
Low Noise Amplifier Design
We reviewed the class notes, textbook “VLSI for Wireless Communication by
Bosco Leung”, reference book “RF Microelectronics by Behzad Razavi” and several
IEEE papers. Then, we selected the Single-ended half of the complete differential
narrowband LNA shown on figure 3.8 (b), at page 100 of textbook and study the design
process develop in that book. Using project specifications, we made the computations
need to get the components values.
We implement the design mention above in ADS and through AC Simulation we
were able to measure voltage gain for the frequency range. We observed that, to have a
voltage gain grater that 20 dB the load impedance is bigger than 300 ohms. We conclude
that a matching network is needed.
On the IEEE paper “CMOS LNA in Wireless Applications by Shijun Yang, Ralph
Mason and Calvin Plett” publish on 1999 we found a matching network implemented
using a CMOS transistor, an inductor and a capacitor. Now we were able to fulfill the
voltage gain specification with 50 ohms load impedance.
Now, we change to S Parameter Simulation in order to measure the input
impedance, output impedance and Noise Figure NF. The complete LNA design is shown
in Figure 1
Figure 1. LNA Design
Mixer design
Basic topology
After the study of the theory of mixers from Bosco Leung, Razavi and several
technical papers, a single ended mixer is designed. The basic topology of a single ended
active mixer consist of a single NMOS transistor M1 acting as a V-I converter and then a
current switching block for the Local Oscillator to switch the output currents consisting
of 2 NMOS devices. The circuit has a current source on the source of the V-I converter
NMOS for biasing purposes. The output of the mixer is taken differentially from the gate
terminals of the LO switching pair (not shown). This simplified topology is shown in
Figure 2.
Figure 2. Simple single ended active mixer
DC Biasing
The DC biasing is performed first. As mentioned above a constant current source
is placed at the source terminal of the V-I NMOS. However it is difficult to achieve the
biasing levels required for desired operation point (determined from the device
characterization). Therefore an additional biasing technique is adopted, namely applying
a DC voltage at the gate terminals of the NMOS devices. This is achieved by a circuit
using a PMOS device configured in saturation cascaded with a PMOS transistor observed
from Steve Long’s ADS tutorials on mixer design guide examples. In order to achieve the
desired voltage drops and to minimize the current drawn from this divider, the ratio of
channel width to length for both devices is controlled. It should be mentioned that one
voltage divider branch is needed for each NMOS transistor in figure 1 since the small AC
signal is superimposed on the DC bias and, using only one voltage divider is impossible
without using resistors. Additionally, the current source circuit uses a similar voltage
divider, thus the elevated number of transistors in the device (14). This is a design
tradeoff between relative high number of transistors and the use of resistors, which is
avoided in potentially monolithic integration due to their high noise contributions and
difficulty to implement in silicon.
AC Sources and load
For AC testing purposes, a coupling capacitor of 100 pF is placed between the
signal ports and the gates of the NMOS devices. This prevented any DC biasing from the
gate terminals to propagate back to the AC small signal sources. To convert the single
ended signal from the LO AC source to double balanced, a transformer is used in the
following configuration (Figure 3):
Figure 3. Single ended to differential conversion
For loading purposes, resistors are being used to produce the IF output voltage
differentially at the outputs of the drain terminals of the LO NMOS pair. Figure 4 shows
the complete mixer circuit; a VDD voltage source of 3.3 V is being used (not shown).
Figure 4. Complete single ended mixer
SIMULATIONS AND RESULTS
Low Noise Amplifier Design
For the frequency range of interest, Figure 5 shows the voltage gain and Figure 6
displays the Noise Figure. Magnitude and phase for input impedance are shown at Figure
7.
Figure 5. Voltage Gain
Figure 6. Noise Figure
Figure 7. Magnitude and phase of input impedance
Mixer design
The simulations performed after the DC biasing, is the Harmonic Balance
simulation. This simulation allows for the calculation of mixing terms in the frequency
domain and to simulate certain number of harmonics always present in non-linear
circuits. To configure the Harmonic Balance block it is only necessary to declare the
frequencies at which all your AC sources are working and specify the number of
harmonic terms to be simulated for each source. Figure 4 shows the Harmonic Balance
simulation block. For this project the RF frequency is 960 MHz and the LO frequency is
950 MHz giving an IF frequency of 10 MHz.
Figure 8. Harmonic Balance block
The parameters measured to determine the mixer performance are the conversion
gain, the LO to IF and LO to RF isolation or leakage. The following graphs (Figure 9)
represent the frequency spectrum measured at the RF port and the LO ports.
Figure 9. Frequency Spectrum for RF and IF ports
From the graphs we can calculate the Conversion Gain, LO to IF leakage and LO
to RF isolation by measuring the amplitudes in dB of the components in the Harmonic
Balance simulation. Table 1 summarizes the obtained results.
Conversion Gain
7.993 dB
LO to IF leakage
LO to RF isolation
11.172 dB
16.53 dB
Table 1. Mixer simulation results
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
The remaining Challenges of the Mixer design could be to replace the load
resistors for active loads and to minimize the LO to IF leakage to have a more linear path
between the RF and the IF ports. Another potential improvement is to reduce the number
of transistors by biasing the NMOS devices using only one current source at the bottom
to the mixer circuit.
Regarding the LNA design, the 25  input resistance must be replaced by an
active load and some parameter needs to be changed in order to reduce the total current
from ~75 mA to less than 5 mA. Also a higher voltage supply for the LNA should be
used; probably using the same value for VDD as the mixer of 3.3 V.
BIBILOGRAHPY
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
VLSI for Wireless Communications, Bosco Leung
RF Microelectronics, Behzad Razavi
RFIC MOS Gilbert Cell Mixer Design (Design Semminar), Steve Long
A 2.5 V high linearity CMOS mixer for 1.9 GHz Applications, Vikas Chandra
CMOS LNA in wireless applications, Shijun Yang, Ralph Mason and Calvin Plett