Low-power highly linear UWB CMOS mixer with simultaneous second- and third-order distortion cancellation

A 3.1–4.8 GHz mode-1 UWB CMOS mixer that utilizes simultaneous second- and third-order distortion cancellation is presented. The scheme is based on a new derivative superposition, employing PMOS as an auxiliary FET to cancel the second- and the third-order nonlinear currents of common-source transconductance in the mixer and gives rise to low-distortion operation for a broad range of gate-source voltage. Full Volterra series analysis of the proposed transconductance is reported to examine the effectiveness of the new technique. Simulations in a 0.13 μm CMOS technology demonstrate that IIP3 and IIP2 of the proposed mixer have 18 and 10 dB improvements, respectively, compared with conventional Gilbert-type mixer with the same power consumption. The robustness of the technique has been verified by Monte Carlo analysis. The mixer has a gain of 12 dB and noise figure of 13 dB, while drawing only 2.5 mA from 1.2 V supply voltage.