768
3, MARCH 2019
Integrated Synthetic Fourth-Order Q-Enhanced
Bandpass Filter With High Dynamic Range,
Tunable Frequency, and Fractional
Bandwidth Control
Farooq Amin , Member, IEEE, Sanjay Raman, Fellow, IEEE, and Kwang-Jin Koh , Member, IEEE
Abstract— This paper demonstrates a tunable synthetic
fourth-order bandpass filter (BPF) at microwave frequencies.
Two parallel second-order Q-enhanced LC BPFs responses are
added with the out of phase to synthesize a fourth-order BPF
response. The filter is implemented in a 130-nm SiGe BiCMOS
technology with a core die area of 0.53 × 0.7 mm2 . The filter
center frequency can be tuned from 4 to 8 GHz (C-band). The
filter also achieves a wide 3-dB fractional bandwidth (BW) tuning
range of 2%–25%, with a passband ripple of less than 0.5 dB. The
corresponding normalized dynamic range (DR) is 151–166 dB·Hz
owing to a switched varactor control scheme to realize a large
effective tuning range with high linearity. Using the parallel
synthesis approach, the filter can maintain the DR of a second-
order BPF while achieving a fourth-order frequency selectivity,
which is favorable compared to cascading resonators. On the
lower side of the band, the filter achieves more than 65 dB of
ultimate rejection. On the upper side, the rejection is more than
52 dB. The filter also employs a variable transconductor for
noise-linearity tradeoff flexibility. The power consumption of the
filter is 112–125 mW over the above fractional BW tuning range
at the target C-band.
Index Terms— Bandpass filter (BPF), bandwidth (BW) tuning,
frequency tuning, Q-enhanced LC filter, varactor, wideband.
I. I NTRODUCTION
T UNABLE filters to mitigate interference and self-
interference issues in wideband RF transceivers and radar
sensors are of greatly increasing interest recently. Tunability,
specifically in terms of operating frequency and band-
width (BW), is essential in enabling emerging multi-standard
RF systems and radar-communication convergence. In order
Manuscript received June 4, 2017; revised November 30, 2017,
April 18, 2018 and August 4, 2018; accepted October 15, 2018. Date of
publication February 13, 2019; date of current version February 21, 2019.
This paper was approved by Associate Editor Waleed Khalil. This work was
supported in part by BAE Systems through MICS Industry Affiliate Program
Membership, in part by NASA-VSGC Graduate Fellowship, and in part
by Virginia Tech incoming faculty startup fund. (Corresponding author:
Farooq Amin.)
F. Amin was with Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061 USA. He is now
with the Northrop Grumman Mission Systems, Baltimore, MD 21240 USA
(e-mail: famin@vt.edu).
S. Raman is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061 USA (e-mail: sraman@vt.edu).
K. Koh was with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061 USA (e-mail: kkoh@vt.edu). He is now
with the Lockheed Martin Corporation, Bethesda, MD, USA.
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available
online at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSSC.2018.2882266
0018-9200 © 2019 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS, VOL. 54, NO.
to meet compact form factor requirements, there has con-
sequently been a great drive to explore on-chip filtering
techniques, including N-path, Q-enhanced LC, active LC,
and discrete-time (DT) RF filtering. N-path filtering [1]–[20]
has emerged as a promising candidate in terms of performance
for on-chip integration but has historically been limited to fre-
quencies ∼3 GHz and below. N-path filtering requires gener-
ating accurate multiphase clock signals. Such clock generation
circuits require excessive dynamic power consumption and
become difficult to realize accurately beyond low microwave
frequencies. In addition, DT RF signal filtering approaches
have been reported for such receivers [20]–[22], [40], [41].
These filters also require differential or multiphase clocks and
hence have similar challenges as N-path filters.
More recently, N-path filters at microwave frequencies of
6 and 12 GHz have been reported [14], [15]. These filters
have a very large frequency tuning range accomplished by
local oscillator (LO) (clock) tuning; however, with the increas-
ing operating frequency, the out-of-band (OOB) rejection
decreases progressively to 20 dB or worse. This is due to
the filtering dependence on the clock’s duty cycle which gets
distorted at a higher frequency since the rise and fall times are
a significant fraction of the total clock pulse width. In addition,
filtering at these frequencies comes at the expense of large
power consumption compared to filtering below 2 GHz. The
power consumption will also increase substantially to achieve
higher OOB rejection using higher order structures or tech-
niques employed at lower frequencies. For example, for a
fourth-order bandpass filter (BPF) realization, the power con-
sumption will be twice that of second order simply because
the clock phases have to drive twice the number of switches.
On the other hand, the Q-enhanced LC filtering approach
is favorable at microwave frequencies and above, particularly
due to the decrease in inductor size and increase in inductor
quality factor as frequencies scale up. On-chip integrated
BPFs based on Q-enhanced LC resonators are, therefore, very
attractive in terms of integration, resulting in a small form
factor at high frequencies. Varactor-based frequency tuning
of LC-resonator-based filters is also advantageous in terms
of tuning speed for tracking and detection applications. This
paper presents the Q-enhanced LC-resonator-based synthetic
fourth-order BPF. The main application space of the proposed
filter is illustrated in Fig. 1. For accommodating a higher input
AMIN et al.: INTEGRATED SYNTHETIC FOURTH-ORDER Q -ENHANCED BPF
Fig. 1. Radar RxP modules. (a) Conventional RxP with bulky pre-TR
power limiters [37], [38]. (b) Advanced RxP by leveraging high breakdown
GaN LNA for a low-volume RxP.
compression level, the existing radar receiver protection (RxP)
module in Fig. 1(a) includes a high-power limiter followed
by a filter and a low-power limiter before the GaAs-based
receiver typically [37]. The pre-transmit–receive (TR) limiters
are usually made with high-power diodes housed in a bulky
tube structure filled in with a retroactive gas to facilitate
plasma discharge in the gas tube and thus to enhance the
breakdown process [37], [38].
Fig. 1(b) shows the more advanced concept of RxP to reduce
the form factor of the RxP module—by leveraging recent
advances in the high breakdown GaN process, the tunable (for
gain, BW, and operation frequency) GaN LNA can attenuate
OOB signals with flexible dynamic range (DR) control. This
allows the integration of the following receive module in a low
breakdown but cost-effective silicon process, reducing the size,
weight, and cost factors of the radar systems. The proposed
silicon filter is to be used at the very front end of the silicon
receiver module following the external GaN LNA to provide
further filtering of interferers and thus to relieve the DR and
associated power dissipation issues in the silicon receivers.
In this exemplary work, the target passband input 1-dB gain
compression point (IP−1 dB) of the silicon filter is greater than
0 dBm. The OOB IP−1 dB requirement depends on blocker
scenarios under particular radar operations over the C-band
(4–8 GHz).
In general, the Q-enhanced second-order LC BPF using
parallel RLC circuit is simple to implement on-chip with
lower complexity, easier frequency tuning, and Q control,
appropriate for very high Q or narrowband systems.
However, to increase the selectivity of the filter, higher order
structures are needed. This is typically achieved by cascading
multiple resonators in conventional ladder filter structures with
capacitive or magnetic-coupled resonators, as shown in Fig. 2.
But due to the increasing losses of passive components at
higher frequencies, the DR quickly degrades in conventional
769
Fig. 2. Common high-order BPFs configurations. (a) Capacitive-coupled
resonators. (b) Magnetic-coupled resonators.
cascaded filter structures. In addition, their on-chip realization
can be very complex in terms of the number of components,
frequency tuning, precise coupled component value, and Q
compensations for each inductor. Also, there can be a large
difference in range between resonant and coupled component
values thereby further limiting their on-chip realization.
For example, C1 and C12 in Fig. 2(a) are related as
C12 = k12 C1 /Q BPF [23]. Coupling coefficient k12 is a small
value, e.g., 0.711 for Chebyshev 0.1-dB ripple filter. A BPF
Q of 30 requires C12 to be 42 times smaller than C1 . For
magnetic coupling using the transformer in Fig. 2(b), the BW
is determined by the coupling coefficient k, which is difficult
to control. Previous attempts to realize Q-enhanced LC-filters
around 2 GHz and below have limitations including lack of
frequency tuning, BW or Q-tuning, and limited DR [24]–[33].
This paper presents a synthetic approach utilizing two
second-order resonators to realize a fourth-order bandpass
filtering for a flat passband BW control and large OOB
attenuation at microwave frequencies [34]. A detailed fourth-
order signal conditioning analysis leading to the design
equations is provided. This paper also provides the analysis
on a switched control varactor technique for improving the
linearity. Finally, the implementation details and a complete
set of measurement results, including OOB blocker excitation,
are provided. One fundamental benefit of the proposed parallel
filter synthesis approach is to increase frequency selectivity
to a fourth-order with the capability of passband ripple
magnitude control while maintaining a high second-order
DR performance. Thus, the proposed technique can relieve
the notorious DR-selectivity tradeoff in general Q-enhanced
active filters, which is analytically described at a system level
in Section II. Section III covers detailed circuit design with Q-
tuning, frequency tuning, and varactor linearization scheme.
The measurement results are shown in Section IV along with
comparison and discussion. Section V concludes this paper.
II. PARALLEL S YNTHESIS OF F OURTH –O RDER LC BPF
A. Bandpass Filter Frequency Selectivity and Ripple
Fig. 3(a) shows the fourth-order parallel filter synthesis
method intuitively, where two BPFs or parallel resonators with
close by center frequencies ω01 and ω02 are subtracted [19].
The LC tank losses are represented by a resistance R P and a
variable negative resistance −R N provides loss compensation
and Q-tuning. For sufficiently high-Q resonators, the fre-
quency responses of the resonators undergo a sharp phase tran-
sition at their individual center frequencies ω01 and ω02 . With
the assumption of ω02 > ω01 , for the regions below ωo1 and
770 IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS, VOL. 54, NO. 3, MARCH 2019

Fig. 3. (a) Synthesizing a fourth-order bandpass response by subtracting two identical second-order resonators each tuned at a slightly different resonance
frequency. (b) Frequency spacing between resonators and BW of each resonator versus in-band ripple magnitude for a total BW of 300 MHz. (c) Spacing
between resonators and total BPF BW versus in-band ripple magnitude for a resonator BW of 200 MHz.

above ωo2 , the two waveforms will be subtracted. In between of ∼210 MHz between the two resonators, i.e., the resonators
the two resonance frequencies, the phases are opposite, and are centered at f o1 ≈ 5.79 GHz and fo2 ≈ 6.21 GHz with
therefore, the waveforms will be added together, forming Q 1 ≈ 57, and Q 2 ≈ 61, respectively. These values are
a passband. Mathematically, the transfer function of the well matched with circuit simulations. For a given resonator
subtraction can be written as BW, e.g., 200 MHz in this case, the maximum achievable
ω01 ω02 fourth-order BW and the frequency spacing between the two
Q1 s Q2 s
H (s) = 2 ω01 − ω (1) resonators are plotted in Fig. 3(c) against passband ripple. For
s + Q 1 s + ω01
2 s 2 + Q022 s + ω02
2
a 3-dB ripple, the maximum fourth-order BW is 613 MHz at
where Q 1 and Q 2 are the quality factors of individual second- 6 GHz center frequency, which is 3.1 times the BW of the
order BPFs. If both BPFs have equal BW, i.e., ω01 /Q 1 = individual resonators. It is possible to achieve a very large
ω02 /Q 2 , then (1) becomes BW by lowering Q of each resonator to around 4–5 while
  maintaining a fourth-order stopband roll-off, as discussed in
ω01 ω02 ωQ021 − ωQ012 s Section III.
H (s) =   . (2)
s 2 + ωQ011 s + ω01
2 s 2 + ωQ022 s + ω02
2
B. Bandpass Filter Noise
In traditional filter synthesis [23], the design specification
A system-level noise analysis is performed for the fourth-
(ripple and BW) of the passband response determines Q and
order BPF. The block diagram of a synthetic fourth-order
resonant frequency of each LC tank. A similar process can
filter consists of two second-order filters A and B is shown
be followed in the fourth-order synthetic filter design. A set
in Fig. 4. The noises of the LC tank, the negative resistance,
of simple and approximate equations are derived from (2) in
and Q-tuning element are assumed to be dominant. The
terms of passband ripple (Mr in dB), center frequency (ωc ),
second-order BPF has noise sources from RC1,2 , used for
and 3-dB gain BW (ω3 dB ). The resonance frequencies ωo1 ,
Q control, tank losses R P1,2 , and the loss compensation
ωo2 , and Q of each resonator can then be set by the following
negative resistance R N1,2 = −1/G m1,2 where G m1,2 could be
equations. The derivations of these equations are provided in
a cross-coupled transconductance in typical Q-enhanced LC
Appendix A
filters. As can be seen in Section III-C, the noise contribution
ωo1 ωo2 ∼ ω3 dB from the unity gain buffers in Fig. 4 will be negligible since
= =  √ (3)
Q1 Q2 10 M r /20 + 10 r /10 − 1 +
M 2−1 their output resistance will be far smaller than RC1,2 in actual
and transistor-level circuit implementation. The noise currents
   from RC1,2 , R P1,2 , and R N1,2 are converted to voltages by
1 ωo1,2  
ω ∼
= · 10 Mr /20 + 10 Mr /10 − 1 . (4) the total tank load Z Tank1,2 and the equivalent total noise
2 Q 1,2 power density (V2 /Hz) of each second-order BPF is given by
Consequently, each resonator center frequency can be set as  
1 1
Vn,T 1,2 = 4kT
2 + + γEq G m1,2 |Z Tank1,2|2
ωo1 = ωc − ω and ωo2 = ωc +ω. (5) RC1,2 R P1,2
(6)
Fig. 3(b) shows the frequency spacing between the two
resonators and BW of each resonator when the total BPF filter where
BW ω3dB = 2π ×300 MHz is set in (3). For example, for a 5% ω01,2

factional BW of 300 MHz at a center frequency of 6 GHz and Q 1,2 s

Z Tank1,2 = RC1,2 R N1,2  R P1,2 ω01,2 . (7)
a passband ripple of 0.5 dB, (3) and (4) give frequency spacing s2 + Q 1,2 s + ω01,2
2
AMIN et al.: INTEGRATED SYNTHETIC FOURTH-ORDER Q -ENHANCED BPF 771

Fig. 4. Noise shaping in the synthetic fourth-order BPF.

γEq is the constant factor associated with the negative Similarly, the total noise power density will be given as in the
transconductance cell noise sources. In the vicinity of reso- following equation at the center of the passband (ωc ):
nance frequency, the tank impedance can be approximated to
2 

Vn,T ω=ωc
RC1,2  
Z Tank1,2 at ω = ω01,2 ± ω1,2 ∼
= R ω1,2
(8) = Vn,T 1 ω=ω
2 2 
+ Vn,T
1+ j 2Q 1,2 RC1,2 2 ω=ω01 =ω02 −ω
P1,2 ω01,2 01+ω

RC1  
where ω1,2 expresses a small offset frequency around ω01,2 = 4kT RC1 1 + 1+γEq
R
satisfying ω1,2  {ωo1 , ωo2 }. For simplification, let us   P1 
assume that RC1 = RC2 , R P1 = R P2 , and G m1 = G m2 . noise power of standalone 2nd −order BPF
⎡ ⎤
If the tank loss is completely compensated by the negative  2 −1   2 −1
RC1 RC2
resistance, e.g., G m1,2 = −1/R P1,2 , then the effective total × ⎣ 1+ K + 1+ K ⎦ . (11)
R P1 R P2
noise power density at ω01 will be given as
  
2 
 2 
 2 
 added nosie power factor ③
Vn,T ω=ω01
= Vn,T 1 ω=ω01 + Vn,T 2 ω=ω01 =ω02 −2ω
 From (9)–(11), the added noise power factors, the noise
RC1
= 4kT RC1 1 + (1 + γEq ) penalty paid for the fourth-order BPF synthesis, are the
R P1
⎡  ⎤ function of RC1,2 /R P1,2 and K. The parameter K ranges from
 2 −1
R 2ω 1.4 to 1.6 when 0.5–1 dB of passband ripple is allowed.
× ⎣1 + 1 + 2Q 2 ⎦
C2
R P2 ω02 In typical moderate-to-high-Q control greater than the intrinsic
 LC tank Q, RC1,2 will be greater than the intrinsic LC tank
RC1 resistance R P1,2 . This makes the added noise power factors
= 4kT RC1 1 + (1 + γEq )

R
 P1  ① and ② in (9) and (10) less than 1.1 if K = 1.5 is assumed,
noise power of standalone 2nd −order BPF
namely, less than 10% noise power increase at the edges of the
⎡  ⎤
 2 −1 passband compared with the stand-alone second-order BPF.
R The added noise power factor ③ in (11) will be less than 1
× ⎣1 + 1 + 2 ⎦.
C2
K (9)
R P2 when K· RC1,2 > R P1,2 , resulting in a slightly better noise per-
   formance than stand-alone second-order BPF at ωc . The reason
added nosie power factor ① for this better noise performance is obvious since the two
added noises from individual filters are perfectly uncorrelated,
In (9), 2ω/ω02 = K/Q 2 is applied where K = 10 Mr /20 + whereas signals are correlated at ωc . Note that as increasing
(10 Mr /10 − 1)1/2 in (4). Likewise, the effective total noise the ratio of RC1,2 /R P1,2 to obtain higher filter Q, the net noise
power density at ω02 is found to be as power from the individual second-order BPFs also increases,

2  2 
 2 
 degrading overall noise performance and exhibiting typical
Vn,T ω=ω02
= Vn,T 1 ω=ω02 =ω01 +2ω + Vn,T 2 ω=ω02 noise-selectivity tradeoff in the Q-enhanced LC filters.

 RC2 In a low Q control smaller than the intrinsic LC tank
2 
Vn,T ω=ω = 4kT RC2 1+ (1 + γEq )
02 R Q, RC1,2 will be smaller than R P1,2 and the added noise
 P2  power factors ①, ②, and ③ in (9)–(11) will increase only
noise power of standalone 2nd −order BPF
⎡  ⎤ incrementally. Apparently, in extremely low Q case where
 2 −1
RC1 K · R C1,2  R P1,2 , the two second-order BPFs could
× ⎣1 + 1 + 2 K ⎦. (10) degenerate to an all-pass filter at the frequency band of
R P1
interest. Then, the two BPF noise powers Vn,T 2 2
   1 and Vn,T 2
added nosie power factor ② will be added together with the negligible noise shaping effect
772 IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS, VOL. 54, NO. 3, MARCH 2019

Fig. 5. Conceptual description of nonlinear response of the synthetic fourth-order filter comprising two second-order filters 
A and 
B with two-tone analysis
for two cases: ① at the edge of fourth-order response and ② at the center of fourth-order response.

by the resonators. This is well expected in (9)–(10) where fundamental tones ( A ,fund ). The third-order input intercept
if K·RC1,2  R P1,2 the added noise power factors ①, ②, point (IIP3 ) of filter 
A is found to be 10log(α· Pin ) [dB] where
and ③ approach to 2, manifesting non-coherent addition of Pin is the input power in a linear scale. Assuming the two
the two BPF noises at the fourth-order BPF output. It should fundamental tones (ω1 and ω2 ) and IMD3 tones (2ω1 −ω2 and
be noticed that as decreasing RC1,2 for lowering Q, the net 2ω2 − ω1 ) are close enough not to experience any meaningful
noise power from individual second-order BPFs also becomes phase delay difference between them, the two-tone response
smaller. Thus, even if the added noise power factors increase of filter 
B can be given as (13)
the overall noise power will decrease, resulting in better noise
performance compared with the high-Q case. j ω1 t 1

A = e +e j ω2t + {e j (2ω1−ω2 )t + e j (2ω2−ω1 )t }

Intuitively each resonator attenuates noise power with a α  
A A
second-order bandpass response in Fig. 4. Since the resonance ,fund ,IMD3
frequencies of resonators are staggered, the attenuated noise

δ ·  A ,fund
from filter A is either added directly to filter 
B at ω = ω02 
B = + δ3 · 1  e− j ϕ (12)
or further attenuated by the bandpass response of filter  B α  A ,IMD3
before being added at ω = ω02 . Thanks to this attenuated
bandpass noise shaping, the degradation of noise performance where
by the uncorrelated noise addition in the fourth-order BPF |Z Tank2|
is negligible. The net effect of the added noise at the edges δ= and ϕ = tan−1 (Z Tank2 ). (13)
RC2
of fourth-order BPF passband on the overall system noise
figure will be particularly trivial when the BPF is preceded In (13), the output of filter 
B is modulated by a normalized
by a high gain amplifier stage such as LNA or transconductor tank impedance of δ · e− j ϕ . δ and ϕ are dependent on the
in typical RF front-end applications (see the circuit-level noise frequency offset from the resonance frequency of each filter.
analyses and simulation results in Section III-C). Note that the IMD3 tones are attenuated by a factor of δ 3
compared with the fundamental tone attenuation factor of δ.
C. Bandpass Filter Linearity The composite two-tone response (T ) at the output of the
fourth-order filter will be
Fig. 5 shows the nonlinear response of the fourth-order filter
when excited by two tones intuitively. The major sources of
T = 
A + 
B
nonlinearity are the varactor and the active loss compensation
− jϕ 1
negative resistance. Two cases are discussed for the two-tone = (1 + δ · e− j ϕ ) 3
A ,fund + (1 + δ · e )  .
location within the fourth-order filter band. Case ① is the α A ,IMD3
worst case scenario when the two tones are at the edge of (14)
fourth-order passband or at the center of the second-order
filter .
A For the nonlinear response of the individual second- From (8), the attenuation factor δ at 2ω offset from the center
order filters, shown on the top of each other, the filter 
A will frequency of filter 
B [see Fig. 3(a)] can be found as
give standard second-order filter response and its nonlinear
waveform  1 1
A is expressed as (12). In (12), the magnitude δ2 = 
(1/α) of the third-order intermodulation distortion (IMD3)  2 =   2 . (15)
1 + 2Q 2 RRC2 2ω RC2
1 + 2 R P2 K
tones ( A ,IMD3 ) are normalized by the magnitude of the P2 ω02
AMIN et al.: INTEGRATED SYNTHETIC FOURTH-ORDER Q -ENHANCED BPF 773

Fig. 6. Simulated nonlinear response of the synthetic fourth-order filter comprising two second-order filters 
A and 
B with two-tone analysis for two cases:
① at the edge of fourth-order response and ② at the center of fourth-order response.

Therefore, IIP3 of the fourth-order filter at the edge of The attenuation factor δ at ω offset from the center
passband, IIP3 |T ,edge , is frequency of each filter [see Fig. 3(a)] is
1 1
IIP3 |T ,edge δ =   2 =   2 . (18)

RC1,2 ω
1 + 2Q 1,2 R P1,2 ω01,2
RC1,2
1 + R P1,2 K
(1 + δ2 cosϕ)2 + (δ2 sinϕ)2
= 10log α · Pin
(1 + δ2
3 cosϕ)2 + (δ 3 sinϕ)2
2 Therefore, IIP3 at the center of passband, IIP3 |T ,center , will be
⎛ ⎞  
 1
 (1 + δ2 cosϕ)2 + (δ2 sinϕ)2 IIP3 |T ,center = IIP3 |filter
A + 10log ⎝ 
= IIP3 |filter    ⎠. A + 20log δ . (19)
3 cosϕ 2 + δ 3 sinϕ 2 
1 + δ2 2
The net IIP3 improvement is 20log(1/δ ) at the mid-passband.
(16) Fig. 6 illustrates a simplified simulation setup in Advanced
Design System (ADS) [42] to verify the linearity improvement
In typical Q control where K · R C2 > R P2 , δ could be much in the fourth-order BPF and simulation results for the cases
smaller than 1. Therefore, the resultant IIP3 is essentially the ① and ② in Fig. 5. In Fig. 6(a), the ideal voltage buffer
same as that of the second-order filter or slightly better. The is a voltage controlled voltage source (VCVS) component,
same is valid for the higher frequency edge of the fourth-order and the varactor from GlobalFoundries (GF) 0.13-μm SiGe
filter. BiCMOS process (GF8HP) library model (model name: ncap)
The best case, ② in Fig. 5, is when the two tones are at is used. The varactance ranges from 1.1 to 4.2 pF and is set
the center of the fourth-order filter passband. At the center of to 2.91 pF at filter  A and 2.59 pF at filter  B to resonate
passband, the two-filter outputs are added in phase and the the inductor L = 350 pH at around 5 GHz ( f o1 ) and
overall wave function of (14) will be modified to 5.28 GHz ( f o2 ), respectively, resulting in fc = 5.14 GHz.
  In this setting, the varactor Q is 38.3 and 37, resulting in the
δ2 parasitic LC tank resistance of 420 and 430
in the filters
T = 
A +  A ,fund + α  
B = 2δ  e− j ϕ .
A ,IMD3 
A and , B respectively. These resistances are compensated,
(17) respectively, by the negative resistances of RN1 and RN2 . Then,
774
Fig. 7. (a) Block diagram of the on-chip implemented differential synthetic fourth-order BPF. (b) Schematic detail of one path of the on-chip implemented
synthetic filter and subtractor.
RC1 and RC2 are set to 232 and 262
, respectively, to define simulation results in Section III-C). Meanwhile, the nonlinear
the filter Q to around 21.24 and 22.55 in the filters  A and , B
respectively, 5%–6% Q mismatch between the two filters.
With matched impedance, two tones with −10-dBm input
power are applied to characterize the filter nonlinearity, and
the results are disclosed in Fig. 6(b).
For case ①, with two-tone input of 5 GHz ± 25 MHz,
the IMD3 tone at the output of filter  A is about −36 dBm
[see node II output in Fig. 6(b)], whereas the IMD3 tone
power is significantly decreased to around −70 dBm at the
output of filter B due to gain decrease [see node III output
in Fig. 6(b)]. Consequently, the composite IMD3 at the output
of fourth-order response [node IV output in Fig. 6(b)] is
essentially the same as that of filter .
A However, at the center
of the passband (case ②) each individual filter’s IMD3 tones
decreases by the factor of three in dB-scale compared to the
fundamental tones decrease, decreasing to below −36.9-dBm
level. After combining the nonlinearities, the composite
IMD3 at the synthetic filter output node IV grows to around
−47 dBm. This is ∼11 dB smaller IMD3 tone power, resulting
in 5.5 dB better IIP3 at the center of the fourth-order BPF
passband compared to the individual second-order filter’s IIP3 .
The simulation verifies the linearity advantage of the
fourth-order BPF using subtraction of two second-order BPFs.
When the ripple magnitude is contained below ∼1.5 dB
(K < 1.7), the theoretical IIP3 improvement from (19) is
which can be set to minimum for better NF
around 3 dB which is 2.5 dB smaller than the simulation
result. The discrepancy is because of that the theory assumes
identical quality factor and the same nonlinearity from individ-
ual second-order filters, whereas in actual simulation, the two
filters experience slight different Q and nonlinearity because
high impedance. The emitter-
the varactors are biased slightly different bias points.
From the noise and linearity analysis, it is evident that using
the subtraction of two second-order filters, to achieve fourth-
order filtering, results in the same noise figure (NF) as that of
the individual second-order filters (see the circuit level noise
. Resistance
IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS, VOL. 54, NO. 3, MARCH 2019
behavior of the fourth-order is the same as second-order BPF
at worst and improves in the mid-region of fourth-order filter
band. Therefore, the DR of the second-order filter is preserved
when using the proposed synthetic approach to implement a
fourth-order BPF.
III. F OURTH -O RDER Q-E NHANCED
LC BPF C IRCUIT D ESIGN
The block diagram of the proposed differential fourth-
order BPF and schematic detail of one path (filter ) A of the
fourth-order BPF together with signal subtractor are shown
in Fig. 7(a) and (b), respectively. The schematic design is
leveraged by our prior implementations of second-order BPF
and synthetic notch filter in [35] and [36] using the same
GF8HP process. As shown in Fig. 7(a) and (b), the two
second-order LC filter sections comprised of Rc , L, Rp , RN ,
and switched varactor array are driven in the voltage mode
using emitter follower M1,2 . In parallel, the variable gain
transconductors comprised of M3,4 and RG drive the LC tanks
in the current mode to provide gain controllability. This
voltage and current dual-mode drive architecture provides
operational flexibility in the noise-linearity tradeoff space.
Specifically, the resistance RG in the transconductor varies
from 10 to 670
and maximum when the linearity is important [35], [36]. The
diode M9 provides bias current for the transconductor. The
input resistor RI is implemented with a combination of linear
resistors and triode MOS transistors to provide either 50-
matched impedance or 1-k
follower pair M10,11 and the common-emitter pair M12,13,
shown in Fig. 7(b), are used to subtract the two second-
order LC tank outputs. This gives a fourth-order BPF response
by matching the gains from the two LC tank outputs using
resistance R E . The optimized value for R E is 22
AMIN et al.: INTEGRATED SYNTHETIC FOURTH-ORDER Q -ENHANCED BPF 775

Fig. 8. Varactor control scheme. (a) Typical single continuous mode control with the single large non-linear varactor. (b) Four independent controls employing
three switched and one continuous mode control to improve linearity by reducing the non-linear capacitance. (c) Simulation results of frequency coverage
of the continuous single varactor control and split four-varactor control schemes. (d) LC tank linearity with continuous single varactor control and split
four-varactor control—three switched varactors control plus one continuous varactor control.

R0 = 26
and the emitter-follower pair together serve as inductor of L = 325 pH, tunes the tank center frequency
matching to the 50-
load for measurement purposes. from 4 to 8 GHz including all parasitic effects. Varactor
capacitance is a function of control voltage VGS across its
A. Q-Tuning of Second-Order BPF terminals. The C–V relation depicted in Fig. 8(a) for a single
large varactor is linear or quasi-linear toward the minimum
The variable resistor RC in Fig. 7(a) is composed of linear
and maximum capacitance regions A and strongly nonlinear
350
resistors and NMOS Ms1,s2 in triode region, as shown
in the transition region B versus control voltage. In [35],
in Fig. 7(b). By controlling the resistance RC , Q of the second-
to improve the varactor linearity, a dual-varactor inverse (DVI)
order BPF can be increased up to ∼100 and reduced to as low
control scheme is adopted where two varactors are biased with
as ∼4. The parallel combination of Ms1,s2 and RC , in series
different operating points so that the nonlinearity from each
with ∼20-
output impedance of M1,2 , forms the LC tank
varactor can be partially canceled out by each other. This
load. This load varies from 27 to 370
and controls √ each method requires manual optimization or lookup-table-based
resonator’s intrinsic filter Q(= R P /Z o where Z o = L/C)
bias control to find optimum bias point of each varactor.
from 3 to 42 at 4 GHz. Transistors M1,2 and M9 set dc
More systematic linearity improvement can be achieved by
bias across resistance RC to be equal (VCC –VBE,on ). This
a switched varactor control with a number of varactor array
forces Ms1,s2 into deep triode region to operate as a linear
with a smaller size. This is illustrated in Fig. 8(b). By dividing
controlled resistor. The parasitic LC tank loss caused by a
the single varactor into four equally sized smaller varactors
finite Q of inductor and varactors can be compensated by the
where the three varactors can be switched in between the
negative resistance cell R N . R N is formed by the degenerated
quasi-linear regions A, the nonlinear varactance range B can
Darlington pairs M5−8 , R X , and RY for improved linearity
be shrunk by four times. Furthermore, thanks to the reduced
and minimal center frequency drift during Q-tuning [35], [36].
nonlinear capacitance range, the varactance transition slope is
Transistors M5,6 and R X = 200
give fixed linearized
also scaled down by the same factor, resulting in much milder
negative resistance, where R X also traps the transistor noise.
nonlinear behavior during the varactance transition region.
Additional variable negative resistance is achieved from the
This can be verified from SPECTRE periodic steady-state
transconductor pair M7,8 and variable resistance R X . The
(PSS) simulation. Fig. 8(c) shows the simulation results
total R N can be approximated as −2(R X ||RY ) differentially.
of the coverage of LC tanks resonance frequency using
the single varactor and four individual varactors control,
B. Switched Varactor Frequency Tuning respectively. The corresponding nonlinearity of the LC tanks
Fig. 8 shows that the LC tank consists of four differential in terms of input 1-dB gain compression point (IP−1 dB )
paired NMOS varactors and inductor L, utilized as a frequency is disclosed in Fig. 8(d). In the simulation, L = 325 pH
tuning element in this paper. The total varactor tuning capac- and overall varactance range are Cvar = 1.12–4.2 pF
itance (Cvar ) range is 1.1–4.2 pF which, together with an (4 · W/L = 1008/0.37, GF8HP model name: ncap). The
776 IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS, VOL. 54, NO. 3, MARCH 2019

Fig. 9. (a) Identification of major noise sources of the filter 

A in the synthetic fourth-order filter. (b) NF theory and simulations for individual filter 
A and 
B
and resultant fourth-order BPF. (c) Noise contribution of individual function block in the fourth-order filter for the fractional BW of 2%–25%.

approach of switching ON and OFF three varactors, while the [see Fig. 7(b)]. Thus, the effective noise from the negative
fourth varies continuously guarantees coverage of the entire resistance unit is comprised of the thermal noise of RY and the
frequency range with no discontinuity [Fig. 8(c)]. NMOS channel noise. The mathematical details on the noise
In Fig. 8(d), it is clearly observed that during the varactor analysis are provided in Appendix B and the final outcomes
transition region, from roughly 4.25 GHz to around 7.5 GHz, of noise factor (F) of filters  A and  B are expressed as
the linearity degrades severely in the continuous single varac- (20) and (21), respectively
tor control case, albeit there is a sweet spot around 5.7 GHz
which is near the midpoint of the varactor transition. In the F|Filter
A
⎛ ⎞
switched varactor control scheme, case ④ where {Vc1 , Vc2 ,
Vc3 } = {VL , VL , VL } exhibits the steepest frequency transi- 2 ⎜ 1 R0 ⎟
RG ⎜ 1 ⎟
tion. However, the minima of IP−1 dB is 6–8 dB better than ≈ 2+4 ⎜ + γ (gmn + gdsn ) + + 2 2 ⎟
Rs ⎝ RG RY ⎠
those of the single varactor case, resulting in close to or better     Q 1Z o1
Gm Negative Resistance Subtractor
than 0-dBm IP−1 dB for most of frequency range, except for
the high-frequency edge. Both varactor control schemes are (20)
essentially identical at the edges of the frequency range where F|Filter
B
IP−1 dB performances are about the same for both control ⎛ ⎞
schemes in Fig. 8(d). The switched varactor array approach 2 ⎜ 1 RE ⎟
RG ⎜ 1 ⎟
with a larger number of small varactors can improve the ≈ 2+4 ⎜ + γ (gmn + gdsn ) + + 2 2 ⎟.
Rs ⎝ RG RY ⎠
linearity further, and overall Q-enhanced LC-tank nonlinearity     Q 2Z o2
would then be limited by the negative resistance R N nonlin- Gm Negative Resistance Subtractor
earity. (21)
In (20) and (21), γ , gmn , and gdsn are the NMOS channel
C. Circuit Noise Analysis thermal noise coefficient, transconductance, and channel con-
The noise analysis at the circuit level is performed for ductance, respectively. Z o1 and Z o2 , respectively, express the
the two paths from the filter  A and filter .
B Fig. 9(a) filters 
A and B LC tank characteristic impedance. Q 1 and Q 2
shows the major noise sources in the filter .
A The transistor are the quality factor of the LC tank of filters  A and  B
noises from M1 , M3 , and M10 cause a minor effect on including negative resistance.
the overall noise performance because of their low emitter Fig. 9(b) shows the plots of (20) and (21) with typical
impedance compared with loading impedances. Major noise design values at the center frequencies of f 01 and f 02
contributors are resistor thermal noises from the input and along with circuit simulation results for a fourth-order
output matching resistors RI and Ro , the transconductor gain fractional BW of 2%–25%. For this fractional BW range,
control resistor RG , the Q-tuning resistor RC , the LC tank Qs (Q 1 and Q 2 ) vary from 62 to 7. The individual filter’s NF
parasitic resistor RP , and its compensation resistor RN . In a at f 01 and f 02 matches well with the theory. The simulated
negative resistance cell, the variable resistor RY is realized noise figure of the resultant fourth-order filter at the center
with a parallel of linear resistor RY and NMOS transistor frequency f c = ( f01 + f 02 )/2 is also plotted and shows that
AMIN et al.: INTEGRATED SYNTHETIC FOURTH-ORDER Q -ENHANCED BPF 777

Fig. 10. BW mismatch simulations for (a) filter 

A BW is less than filter 
B and (b) filter 
B BW is less than .
A (c) Simulation results of f 01 error and its
effects on ripple magnitude and 3-dB BW.

the fourth-order NF is about the same as or slightly better than

that of individual second-order filters. This is well expected
from the noise discussion in Section II-B [see (11)]. Fig. 9(c)
analyzes %-contribution of the major noise sources while
varying the fourth-order fractional BW from 2% to 25%.
The noise of the negative resistance becomes dominant when
Q increases for narrowband shaping. For low to moderate
Q (e.g., <20), where the fourth-order BPF fractional BW is
>5%, the noise contribution from the negative gm decreases
and the noise from the transconductance dominates.

D. Mismatch Consideration
Ideally, the two BPF BWs should be equal to synthesize a
fourth-order shaping. However, the technique is very robust
against mismatches between the BWs. Fig. 10(a) and (b)
shows the simulation results with BW mismatches up to 30%.
The mismatch has a negligible impact on the ripple magnitude.
As far as the OOB filtering is concerned, the roll-off does not
change significantly for a 15% mismatch—namely, as can be
seen in Fig. 10(a) and (b), the BW mismatch up to 15% causes
slight better roll-off on one side of center frequency with
slight degradation on the opposite side of the center frequency.
From (2), a large mismatch introduces non-negligible zero
which creates a notch either on the lower or higher side of the
loading is greater than 30 dBm. This, however,
BPF stopband depending on the two second-order resonators
relative BWs. When the BW of filter  A (ω01 /Q 1 ) is smaller
than the BW of filter  (ω02 /Q 2 ) by 30%, a notch appears
B earity of frequency and Q-tuning elements, the IIP3 finally
on the lower side of the bandpass as can be seen in Fig. 10(a).
For the mismatch case when ω02 /Q 2 is smaller than ω01 /Q 1 ,
the notch is present at the higher side of the BPF. The
advantages and disadvantages of BW mismatch are subjective
to the requirement. By controlling the BWs, an intentional
notch can be introduced for blocker rejection for a specific
interference scenario.
The effect of the error in second-order BPFs center fre-
quency (ω01 ) on the fourth-order BW and ripple magnitude
is plotted in Fig. 10(c) for 1-GHz BW at 5.7-GHz center
frequency with less than 0.5-dB ripple. When ω01 increases
toward ω02 (positive %-error), the ripple reduces as well
as the 3-dB BW. On the other hand, when ω01 decreases
away from ω02 (negative %-error), the ripple and the 3-dB
BW increases. The ±10% error in f 01 corresponds to the
Fig. 11. Chip photograph (1.05 × 0.95 mm2 including pads).
capacitance variation of 1.6 pF from 1.9 to 3.5 pF, which is
not realistic in practical designs. The less than ±2% error
corresponds to <100 fF of capacitance variation, which is
a more realistic case for the parasitics effect. For this case,
the maximum ripple variation is 0.5 dB and the fourth-order
3-dB BW variation is around 110 MHz, ∼11% of 1 GHz.
To control the tuning frequencies with precision, a closed-loop
control scheme could be adopted for frequency tuning [39].
In the linearity simulations, the IIP3 of the input buffer
with >350-
decreases to 16–19 dBm depending on the gain setting after
adding the gain control transconductor. Due to the nonlin-
dwindles to 8–11 dBm range after the varactor and negative
transconductor. Note that the filter is to be integrated on-chip
and loaded by a large impedance, usually a transistor gate
impedance of the following building block. Under such large
impedance loading, the IIP3 degradation by the subtractor is
negligible in the simulations.
IV. M EASUREMENT R ESULTS
Fig. 11 shows the fabricated chip micrograph of the
fourth-order BPF in the GF8XP process. The area of core
design excluding pads is 0.53 × 0.7 mm2 . The input variable
resistance Ri in Fig. 7(b) is controlled to measure matched
as well as large actual load cases.
778
Fig. 12. Measured (a) filter response at 6 GHz with fractional bandwidth tuning from 2% to 25% and (b) group delays at 6 GHz.
Fig. 13. Measured (a) NF, in-band P−1 dB , and dynamic range and (b) 3-dB group delay variation and phase variation.
A. BPF Characteristics at 6 GHz
The measured filter performance for the BW tuning at the
center frequency of 6 GHz is plotted in Fig. 12 for the input
matched case, i.e., Ri = 50
. Fig. 12(a) shows the achieved
BW tuning from 2% to 25% with a passband ripple of less than
0.5 dB. The corresponding measured group delay is shown
in Fig. 12(b). The worst case 3-dB group delay is 410 ps.
Fig. 13(a) shows the noise measurements, carried out for both
input matched and high-impedance conditions. The measured
NF is 7.6 and 18 dB for the fractional BWs of 25% and 2%,
respectively, when Ri = 1 k
. For smaller fractional BW, at a center frequency of 6 GHz for fractional BWs of 2%,
noise power from the negative resistance cell increases with
the increase in filter Q. The degradation in NF is consistent
with the sensitivity-selectivity tradeoff in Q-enhanced
LC filters. For the input matched case, i.e., Ri = 50
, frequency of 6 GHz. The blocker P−1 dB test is shown
the NF is increased by 4–5 dB over the high-impedance case
due to the resistive matching halving the input signal power.
As discussed in Section III, the filter employs a variable
gain transconductor, and by increasing the gain, the filter NF
can be reduced substantially. This comes at the expense of
linearity degradation. For the matched input case, the in-band
IP−1 dB is −1 ∼ 4 dBm. The resulting normalized DR, shown
in Fig. 13(a), is 151–166 dB for the factional BW range
of 2%–25%. The normalized DR = 174+IP−1 dB −NF [dB] is
the ratio of in-band 1-dB compression point and input-referred
noise floor in a 1-Hz BW [29]. The group delay variation and
IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS, VOL. 54, NO. 3, MARCH 2019
phase variation within 3-dB BW are plotted in Fig. 13(b) ver-
sus fractional BW. The phase variation within the 3-dB BW is
θ (ω)3 dB = ω3 dB × τ (ω) (22)
where τ (ω) is the group delay in seconds and ω3 dB is the BW
of the filter. The group delay variation varies from 0.41 ns
at 2% fractional BW to 0.23 ns at 25% fractional BW. The
corresponding passband phase variations are 17.6° and 124°
for 2% and 25% fractional BW, respectively.
Fig. 14(a) and (b) shows the measured OOB linearity tests
5%, 10%, and 25%, corresponding to 120-, 300-, 600-, and
1500-MHz BWs, respectively. The tests were performed
for both upper and lower offset frequencies from the center
in Fig. 14(a), where a large blocker is injected at offset
frequency and a small signal is at the center frequency of
6 GHz. The blocker power is increased until the in-band signal
compresses by 1 dB and is plotted for upper and lower sides.
Similarly, the OOB IIP3 is performed for upper and lower side
offset frequencies from 6 GHz and is plotted in Fig. 14(b).
B. Frequency Tuning
The measured center frequency tuning from 4 to 8 GHz
is shown in Fig. 15(a) for a constant fractional BW (equiv-
alent Q = 20). The passband ripple is less than 0.2 dB.
AMIN et al.: INTEGRATED SYNTHETIC FOURTH-ORDER Q -ENHANCED BPF 779

Fig. 14. (a) Blocker P−1 dB measurements for 2%, 5%, 10%, and 25%. (b) OOB IP3 measurements for 2%, 5%, 10%, and 25%.

Fig. 15. Measured (a) frequency tuning with constant fractional BW (Q = 20) and (b) frequency tuning with absolute BW of 200 MHz.

Fig. 16. Measured (a) NF, in-band P−1 dB , and DR for constant fractional BW and (b) NF, in-band P−1 dB , and DR for absolute BW.

The filter center frequency tuning is continuous, but for
reporting purposes, is plotted here for discrete frequency steps.
The filter has an excellent out-band-rejection on the lower
side away from the center frequency and is more than 60 dB
at 1 GHz. On the higher frequency side, the OOB rejection
is more than 42 dB and saturates due to the high-frequency
zero caused by the mismatch in BWs of each resonator and
. The
dc blocking capacitors. The filter can also be controlled to
have an absolute BW response, as shown in Fig. 15(b).
In this case, the BW at each center frequency is 200 MHz
and the passband ripple is less than 0.2 dB. The filter has
more than 60 and 45 dB of rejection toward the lower and
upper side frequencies, respectively. The measured NF and
in-band IP−1 dB for the constant fractional BW are plotted in
Fig. 16(a) for the input matched case of Ri = 50
gain is kept constant at 5 dB and the S21 plot is normalized
780 IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS, VOL. 54, NO. 3, MARCH 2019

Fig. 17. Measured (a) gain control at 6 GHz and (b) NF, in-band P−1 dB , and DR versus gain.

TABLE I
P ERFORMANCE C OMPARISON W ITH THE S TATE - OF - THE -A RT BPF S

to 0 dB. The measured DR is 153.2 ± 1 dB · Hz for the
entire frequency range of 4–8 GHz, as shown in Fig. 16(a),
and remains constant since Q of the BPF remains constant.
The measured NF and in-band IP−1 dB for the absolute BW
of 200 MHz are plotted in Fig. 16(b). The DR varies from
154.6 to 147.3 dB and 4 to 8 GHz, respectively. The DR
degrades at high frequencies since more Q is required to
maintain constant BW of 200 MHz, in turn requiring more
negative gm and hence increased NF.
C. Gain Tuning
The filter gain can be tuned based on the NF and linearity
tradeoff due to the current-mode driving using the variable
transconductor in Fig. 7(b). Fig. 17(a) shows the measured
gain tuning centered at 6 GHz for both input-matched and
high-impedance cases. The corresponding measured NF and
IP−1 dB are plotted in Fig. 17(b). The DR range varies from
153.2 to 158.6 dB. The measured filter performance and
its comparison to the state-of-the-art integrated circuit filters
are summarized in Table I. The proposed fourth-order filter
achieves one of the widest tunable BW ranges (from 120 MHz
to 1.5 GHz at 6 GHz), better DR, and higher OOB rejection,
making this design favorable for operation at microwave
frequencies. The power consumption of the filter is on par
with, or better than, the N-path approach at C-band and
beyond.
Fig. 18 summarizes the power consumption contribu-
tions from different blocks for a power supply of 3.5 V.
Fig. 19 shows the power consumption of the published N-path
AMIN et al.: INTEGRATED SYNTHETIC FOURTH-ORDER Q -ENHANCED BPF 781

leakage in the N-path filters to antenna gives away critical

system operating information which may render it unusable in
the spur-sensitive front-end applications. With no such system
application restriction, the proposed Q-enhanced LC filter
demonstrates BW tuning with BW as large as on the order
of GHz which no other prior N-path filters has reported so far.

Fig. 18. Power consumption contribution between different blocks. V. C ONCLUSION

Fig. 19. Power consumption chart of integrated N -path filters, N -path
filter-based receivers, and proposed Q-enhanced fourth-order filter.
This paper has demonstrated an octave tunable (4–8 GHz)
Q-enhanced synthetic fourth-order filter with a state-of-the-
art fractional BW tuning range of 2%–25% in a 130-nm SiGe
BiCMOS technology. Using a set of derived design equations,
given the required passband ripple and BW, two second-
order LC-tanks responses at different closely spaced center
frequencies can be optimally designed. A large DR of 151–
166 dB · Hz is achieved using a switched varactor control
scheme. The proposed parallel synthetic fourth-order filter
approach trades dc power to achieve a versatile filter design
in terms of large fractional BW tuning and center frequency
tuning at microwave bands. By migrating the architecture
to advanced CMOS nodes with better f T , 65 nm or below,
power consumption can be reduced substantially due to the
lower threshold voltage of the transistors. The concept can be
easily extended to X-, Ku-, and K -bands with similar or lower
dc power consumption, since on-chip inductor Q increases,
thereby requiring less loss compensation; however, varactor
losses need to be considered in the millimeter-wave regime.
Applications of the proposed filter design include cellular
communication, radar systems, and navigation.

filters and receiver with N-path filters, mostly at frequencies A PPENDIX A

below 3 GHz. Both lower and upper frequencies power con- In this Appendix, the relationships between ripple magni-
sumption are reported for most of these filters and the trend tude, total BW, BW of each resonator, and spacing between
against frequency is shown with a dashed line. As can be them as defined in Fig. 3(a) are derived. This is started by
seen, the proposed LC filter approach demonstrates a favorable substituting s = j ωc = j (ω1 + ω) = j (ω2 − ω) in (1),
power consumption trend for higher microwave frequency resulting in
designs. In the proposed LC filter, the intrinsic LC tank
ω1
Q increases as frequency increases, requiring less negative jQ (ω1 + ω)
transconductance to achieve the same Q and thus consuming H ( j ωc ) = ω1
1
jQ 1
(ω1 + ω) − 2ω1 ω − ω2
less dc power from the negative resistance unit to achieve ω2
jQ (ω2 − ω)
the same filter selectivity as increasing frequency, as seen in − 2
. (A1)
ω2
Fig. 19. It is also important to note that in addition to power jQ 2
(ω2 − ω) + 2ω2 ω − ω2
consumption being a function of operating frequency, the N-
path filter’s OOB attenuation degrades at higher frequencies Since we are interested in calculating the maximum ripple
due to switch parasitic and multi-phase clock inaccuracies. magnitude Mr in the passband, ignoring ω2 in the denomi-
Finally, it should be mentioned that the direct comparison of nator we get
 
dc power metric between the LC filter and N-path filters may  
 1 1 
not be fair since the N-path filters usually adopt a frequency Mr (ωc ) =  − ω 
. (A2)
down-conversion module including a series of LO drivers  1 + j 2Q 1 ω 1 − j 2Q 1
ω1 +ω ω2 −ω
chain, whereas the LC filter is a stand-alone component.
With the following approximation of
However, the N-path filters inherited down conversion would
be suitable for zero or low IF architecture which may not ω ω ω ω
be the case in certain applications, e.g., radar systems, where ≈ and ≈
ω1 + ω ω
 1 ω 2 − ω ω2 
superheterodyne frequency conversion is still preferable. The  
 1 1 
N-path filter implementation in superheterodyne systems will Mr (ωc ) =  − ω 
(A3)
be complex, requiring image filtering. Furthermore, the clock  1 + j 2Q 1 ω 1 − j 2Q 2 ω2
ω1
782 IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS, VOL. 54, NO. 3, MARCH 2019

which can be rewritten as 2

Subtractor noise (Vn,Sub ):
 
 ω 
 1 − j 2Q 1 ω
ω1 1 + j 2Q 2 ω2 
2
Vn,Sub ≈ 4kT R0 . (A12)
Mr (ωc ) =  − 2 
. (A4)
ω 2 ω
 1 + 4Q 21 ω2 1 + 4Q 22 ω2  2 ):
1 2 Input matching resistor noise (Vn,Ri
Since the BW of each resonator (ω R B ) is set to equal, i.e., 2
Vn,Ri ≈ 4kT Ri × A2v . (A13)
ω1 /Q 1 = ω2 /Q 2 = ω R B , (A4) is simplified to
Av is the voltage gain of filter 
A given as
4 ωω  
Mr (ωc ) = R B  . (A5) 1 gm3 1 RTank
Av ∼
= 1 + R Tank ≈ . (A14)
1 + 4 ω
2
2 1 + gm3 RG 2 RG
ω2 RB
Thus, the overall noise power at the LC tank output is
Consequently,
  2
Vn,overall = Vn,Gm
2 + Vn,Tank
2 + Vn,Sub
2 + Vn,Ri
2
1 1  ωR B  ω
= + . (A6) 1 1 1
Mr (ωc ) 4 ω ωR B = 4kT + + + γ (gmn + gdsn )
RG RP RC
Solving the above-mentioned quadratic equation, we get

# 1 R0 Ri
1
+ 1
−1 + + 2 + 2
RTank . (A15)
ω Mr Mr2 RY RTank 4RG2
= (A7)
ωR B 2 From (A15), it is straightforward to calculate the noise factor
where Mr (ωc ) is simply notated as Mr . of filter 
A which is found to be
When ripple magnitude Mr is in dB, (A7) can be expressed
F|Filter
A
as
ωR B  2
Vn,overall
ω = (10 Mr /20 + 10 Mr /10 − 1). (A8) = 1+
2 4kT Rs A2v
⎛
The 3-dB BW of fourth-order BPF can be written as
# ⎜ 1
√ 2
RTank ⎜ 1 1 1
ω3 dB = 2ω + ω R B 2−1 = 2+ ⎜ + + + γ (gmn + gdsn ) +
 # Rs A2v ⎝ RG RP RC RY
√    
= ω R B (10 Mr /20 + 10 Mr /10 − 1 + 2 − 1). (A9) Gm Q-enhanced LC Tank
⎞
From (A9), Q of individual resonator, ω and resonance ⎟
frequencies ωo1 and ωo2 in Fig. 3(a) can be expressed in terms R0 ⎟
+ ⎟
of 3-dB BW (ω3 dB ) and passband ripple magnitude (Mr in 2
RTank ⎠
  
dB-scale) as (3)–(5), respectively, in the main text. Subtractor
⎛ ⎞
A PPENDIX B 4R 2G ⎜ 1 R0 ⎟
⎜ 1 ⎟
≈ 2+ ⎜ + γ (gmn + gdsn ) + + 2 2 ⎟
In Fig. 9(a), when all the noise powers are referred to the Rs ⎝ RG RY ⎠
    Q 1Z o1
LC tank output, the net noise power density from the LC tank Gm Negative Resistance Subtractor
2
(Vn,Tank ) including negative resistance cell is expressed as (A16)
⎛ ⎞
where, RTank = Q 1 Z o1. Q 1 is the quality factor of the LC tank
⎜ 1 1 ⎟ of filter 
A including negative resistance. Z o1 is the√filter A
⎜ 1 ⎟ 2
2
Vn,Tank = 4kT ⎜ + + γ (gmn + gdsn ) + ⎟R LC tank characteristic impedance and expressed as L/Cvar .
⎝ RP RC RY ⎠ Tank
   Following the same procedure, the noise factor of filter  B
γEq G m1,2 in (6)
found to be
(A10)
F|Filter
B
where, γ , gmn , and gdsn are the NMOS channel thermal ⎛ ⎞
noise coefficient, transconductance, and channel conductance, ⎜ 1
respectively. The negative resistance noise of γEq G m1,2 in (6) 4R 2G ⎜ 1 RE ⎟ ⎟
≈ 2+ ⎜ + γ (gmn + gdsn ) + + 2 2 ⎟.
is γ (gmn + gdsn ) + 1/RY in actual circuit implementation. Rs ⎝ RG RY Q Z ⎠
     2 o2
Following are the noise powers from other major dominant Gm Negative Resistance Subtractor
sources. (A17)
2
Variable gain transconductor noise (Vn,Gm ):
Q 2 is the quality factor of the LC tank of filter 
B including
4kT 2 negative resistance. Z o2 is the filter 
B LC tank characteristic
2
Vn,Gm ≈ R . (A11)
RG Tank impedance.
AMIN et al.: INTEGRATED SYNTHETIC FOURTH-ORDER Q -ENHANCED BPF
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank Rohde & Schwartz USA
Inc. for supporting the measurement equipment. The silicon
chip was fabricated with the support from DARPA (contract #:
HR0011-14-C-0128).
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784 IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS, VOL. 54, NO. 3, MARCH 2019

Farooq Amin (S’14–M’18) received the B.S. degree Kwang-Jin Koh (S’06–M’09) received the Ph.D.
in computer engineering from COMSATS University degree in electrical and computer engineering
Islamabad, Islamabad, Pakistan, in 2005, the M.S. from the University of California at San Diego,
degree in electrical engineering with specializa- San Diego, CA, USA, in 2008.
tion in system-on-chip from Linköping University, From 2000 to 2004, he was a Research Staff with
Linköping, in 2009, and the Ph.D. degree in electri- the Electronics and Telecommunications Research
cal engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute Institute, Daejeon, South Korea. From 2008 to 2010,
and State University (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, he was a Senior Engineer with Intel Corporation,
VA, USA, in 2017. Hillsboro, OR, USA. From 2010 to 2011, he was a
From 2011 to 2013, he was a Design Engineer with Senior Staff Scientist with Broadcom Corporation,
the CPU Design Group, Intel Corporation, Hillsboro, Irvine, CA, USA. From 2012 to 2018, he was an
OR, USA, where he was working on the Intel Hasewell and Broadwell Assistant Professor with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Depart-
family of microprocessors design. In 2016, he joined the Qorvo Advanced ment, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech),
Technology Group, Greensboro, NC, USA, as an intern, where he was working Blacksburg, VA, USA. His current research interests include analog and
on the next-generation SOI RF switch EM modeling. He is currently an RFIC mixed-mode circuits, antennas, and applied electromagnetics from RF to
Design Engineer with Northrop Grumman Mission Systems, Baltimore, MD, millimeter-wave and terahertz range.
USA, where he is working on microwave and mm-wave T/R modules. His Dr. Koh has served as a Technical Program Committee Member for the
research interests include RF and mm-wave circuits, tunable filters, analog IEEE Bipolar/BiCMOS Circuits and Technology Meeting, the IEEE Custom
X-ray read-out circuits and systems, and low-power high-speed custom Integrated Circuits Conference, the IEEE/ MTT-S International Microwave
datapath design. Symposium (IMS), and the IEEE BiCMOS and Compound Semiconductor
Dr. Amin was a recipient of the IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Integrated Circuits and Technology Symposium. He and his doctoral advisees
Symposium Best Student Paper Award (First Place) in 2016, the were a recipient of the First Place Best Paper Award in the Advanced Practice
2014 and 2016 MTT Student Travel Grants, and the NASA-Virginia Space Paper Competition, the Honorable Mention Award in the Student Paper
Grant Consortium (VSGC) Graduate Fellowship from 2015 to 2017. Competition in the 2017 IEEE/MTT-S IMS, the First Place Best Student Paper
Award in the 2016 IEEE/MTT-S IMS, and the Second Place Best Student
Paper Award in the 2015 IEEE/MTT-S IMS. He was a recipient of the Best
Paper Award of the IEEE Solid-State Circuits and the IEEE Electron Device
Societies, Seoul Chapter in 2002, the Science, Technology, Engineering,
Sanjay Raman (S’84–M’98–SM’06–F’12) was and Mathematics Research Fellowships from the National Aeronautics and
born in Nottingham, U.K., in 1966. He received the Space Administration and the Commonwealth of Virginia from 2015 to 2017,
B.S. degree (Hons.) in electrical engineering from the Outstanding Assistant Professor Award from the College of Engineering
the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, in 2014, and the Junior Faculty Research Award from the Institute for Critical
USA, in 1987, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees Technology and Applied Science in 2012, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and
in electrical engineering from The University of State University. He was a finalist of the R.W.P. King Award of the IEEE
Michigan at Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, MI, USA, Antenna and Propagation Society in 2015. He was also one of the recipients
in 1993 and 1998, respectively. of the Team of the Year Award in 2010 from the Teledyne Technology Inc.,
From 1987 to 1992, he was a Nuclear Trained (formerly, Rockwell Scientific Corporation) in recognition of his microwave
Submarine Officer with the U.S. Navy. In 1998, and millimeter-wave silicon phased arrays which were reported to the U.S.
he joined the faculty of the Bradley Department Department of Defense by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic Institute as one of the agency’s major achievements from 2007 to 2008.
and State University (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA, USA, where he is
currently a Professor. From 2007 to 2013, he served as a Program Manager
with the Microsystems Technology Office, Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA), Arlington, VA, USA, where he was responsible
for major Research and Development programs in the areas of high-speed
electronics, adaptive RF/mixed-signal integrated circuits, RF MEMS, and
3-D/heterogeneous integration technologies. He is also currently serving
as an Associate Vice President for the Virginia Tech National Capital
Region, where he is responsible for planning and executing region-wide
initiatives to enhance the university’s research, education, and outreach
missions and the President and CEO for the Virginia Tech Applied Research
Corporation. He is also a founding member of the VT Multifunctional
Integrated Circuits and Systems (MICS) Research Group. His research
interests include RF/microwave/millimeter-wave integrated circuits and
antennas, high-speed/mixed-signal ICs, interconnects and packaging,
RF microelectromechanical/nanoelectromechanical (MEMS/NEMS) devices,
and integrated wireless communications and sensor microsystems.
Dr. Raman was a recipient of the 2007 Virginia Tech College of
Engineering Faculty Fellow, the 2000 Presidential Early Career Award
for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the 1999 NSF CAREER Award,
the Virginia Tech College of Engineering Outstanding New Assistant
Professor Award in 2000, the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics
Association (AFCEA) Postgraduate Fellowship from 1996 to 1997, and the
Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service for his service
at DARPA in 2013. He has served as an Associate Editor for the IEEE
T RANSACTIONS ON M ICROWAVE T HEORY AND T ECHNIQUES and on the
Technical Program Committee of the IEEE Radio Frequency Integrated
Circuits Symposium. He served as the Technical Program Co-Chair for the
2014 International Microwave Symposium. He is an Elected Member of the
IEEE Microwave Theory and Techniques Society (MTT-S) Administrative
Committee.