RF CMOS POWER MIXER DESIGN – thesis
RF CMOS POWER MIXER DESIGN FOR SHORT RANGE WIRELESS APPLICATIONS WITH FOCUS ON POLAR MODULATION
This thesis work is a circuit design of a RF CMOS power mixer that should be used for short range wireless applications, like Bluetooth. The power mixer should also be used for polar modulation technique. In RF communication systems, data transportation between nodes is done by adjusting frequency, phase or amplitude characteristic of a sinusoidal carrier. In systems this is performed with a modulator. Today’s Bluetooth transmitters use quadrature modulators. The polar modulator is an alternative architecture that can reduce current consumption, which is of particular importance in wireless communication systems like Bluetooth. The designed RF CMOS power mixer is part of the polar modulator and converts an incoming low frequency signal to a high radio frequency signal. The power mixer designed is implemented as a Gilbert mixer, which is a mixer architecture preferred in RF circuit design. The power mixer is designed with variable gain control and high output power and designed to fulfil specified targets. Schematic and layout design are performed using Cadence and simulated using SpectreRF. The power mixer is designed in Infineon’s 0.13 µm CMOS technology process C11N. Schematic and layout simulations prove the final functionality of the power mixer designed, that reduces the total current consumption in comparison with the modulator that is used today in Infineon’s Bluetooth modulator.