11-3

An Analog Integrated Polyphase Filter for a High

Performance Low-IF Reciever
Jan Crols and Michiel Steyaert
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, ESAT-MICAS,
KardinaalMercierlaan 94, B-3001 Heverlee, Belgium
Introduction downconversion is performed. A phase error of 1" is equal to a
crosstalk between the lower and upper sideband of -35 dB,
In recent years the zero-IF receiver has been introduced in which is sufficient for most digital communication systems.
several applications [l]. The zero-IF receiver does not need a In a low-IF receiver is the mirror signal not related to the
high Q HF- or IF-filter and it can therefore be realised with a wanted signal and it can be up to 20 dB higher. This means
high degree of integration. Its performance can however, due that in this case the mirror to wanted signal crosstalk must be
to its intrinsic baseband operation, not be compared to the lower than -55 dB, which in turn requires the use of a
classical IF-receiver. Its configuration makes the quality of the quadrature downconverter with a phase accuracy of 0.1". This
received signal in the zero-IF topology sensitive to parasitic is why the low-IF receiver was not succesful in the past.
baseband signals like DC-offsets and LO to RF crosstalk. The However, recently a new quadrature downconverter architecture
low-IF receiver is a recently introduced alternative receiver has been proposed which demonstrates that this value can be
topology closely related to the zero-IF receiver [ 2 ] .By using a achieved in a broad passband without requiring any tuning or
low IF of only a few hundred kHz, it combines the trimming [5]. A polyphase filter which also achieves a
integratability of the zero-IF receiver with the insensitivity of -55 dB mirror to wanted signal separation must be used in
the IF-receiver to parasitic baseband signals. combination with this new quadraNe downconverter to realise
a highly integrated high performance low-IF receiver that is
An analog integrated asymmetric polyphase filter [3] is a key totally insensitive to parasitic baseband signals.
building block for the development of a high performance
fully integrated low-IF receiver. The asymmetric polyphase Realisation of a Polyphase Filter
filter makes it possible to suppres the mirror signal not at
HF, but after quadrature demodulation at a low IF. The most The polyphase filter that is presented here has two fully
important parameters for the polyphase filter are a high differential inputs (I and Q) and two fully differential outputs
dynamic range (DR) and a good mirror signal suppression. (I and Q). The filter is therefore charaterised by 4 transfer
This paper reports on the realisation in a 1.2 pm CMOS functions : a transfer function from each input to each output
process of a 5th order Buttenvorth polyphase filter with a or any set of independant linear combinations of these 4
bandwidth of 220 kHz centered around 250 WIZ. Its measured transfer functions. From positive and negative frequencies at
mirror signal suppression is 64 dB. The active-RC the input to positive and negative at the output is such an
implementation renders a 94.2 dB dynamic range at the input. independant set. A low-IF receiver requires a polyphase filter
with a passband from positive to positive frequencies, with an
The Low-IF Receiver attenuation from negative to negative frequencies and with no
signal transfer from positive to negative frequencies and vice
The low-IF receiver has, just like the zero-IF receiver, a versa. The uansfer functions and the circuit synthesis of such
multipath topology in which the antenna signal is a filter can be found by performing a linear frequency
downconverted in quadrature via two parallel paths (fig. 1). transformation on a lowpass filter characteristic. Eq. 1 gives
The quadrature downconversion makes it possible to postpone this for a first order lowpass filter.
the mirror signal suppression till after the downconversion, 1 I
i.e. when both the wanted signal and the mirror signal are ff/,(jw) = - 4 Hbp(jw)= (1)
I + j w l o , If (jw- jo,
situated at the same low frequencies. The phase relation Remark that this transformation makes Hbp(jw)different for
between the I- and the Q-signal is different for the wanted
(+90") and the mirror signal (-90") and this makes the positive and negative frequencies. The realisation of this
discrimination between two signals situated at the same transfer function is given in fig. 2. Higher order filters can be
frequencies possible. An (1,Q)-signal pair with a +90" phase realised as a cascade of these stages. Every stage realises then
relation is said to have positive frequency components 143. a frequency translated pole of the lowpass transfer function.
Vice-versa is an (1,Q)-signal pair with a -90" phase relation Here a frequency translated 5th order Buttenvorth filter with a
said to have negative frequency components. A filter which lowpass bandwidth of 110 kHz is realised around a
can have a different transfer function for positive and negative centerfrequency of +250 kNz, requiring 5 times the stage of
(e.g. an asymmetric polyphase filter), can thus amplify the fig. 2.
wanted signal and suppres at the same time the mirror signal.
Fig. 3 gives the active-RC implementation of the
In a zero-IF receiver are the lower and upper sideband of the blockscheme of fig. 2. There are two main reasons why the
wanted signal each others mirror signal. Both sidebands may active-RC technique is used for the realisation of the
not be intermingled. The quality of separation is mainly polyphase filter. A small wanted signal can be surrounded by
determined by the phase accuracy with which the quadrature large neighbour signals and this requires a very high DR at
the input. Values of more than 80 dB dynamic range can only
be achieved with the active-RC technique. A second reason for
Research supported by the Flemish Institute for Science and using the active-RC technique is mismatch. The signal
Technology (IWT)

87 0-7803-2599-0195 1995 Symposium on VLSl Circuits Digest of Technical Papers

crosstalk from negative (mirror signal) to positive frequencies
(wanted signal) should be as small as possible and it is
mainly determined by the matching between equivalent
resistors in the I- and Q-path. A matching of 0.2 % results in
-55 dB crosstalk. With MOSFET-C or OTA-C the
performance would depend on the matching of transistors and
this is not so good as the matching of large resistors.
Results and Conclusion
Fig. 4 shows a microphotograph of the filter implemented in
a standard 1.2 pm CMOS process. It is the first demonstrated
fully integrated asymmetric polyphase filter. Its power
consumption is 90 mA from a 5 V power supply. The total
chip area is 7.5 mm2. The centerfrequency is tuned wilhin
5 % accuracy by means of switchable capacitor banks [ 6 ] . U
The gain can be varied from 12 dB upto 48 dB via switchable
resistor banks. Fig. 5 shows the measured transfer functions. 4
Q out
The full line is the wanted transfer function. The dotted line is
the mismatch generated parasitic transferfunction from Fig. 2 : Blockscheme of a f i s t order polyphase filter
negative to positive frequencies and vice-versa. Only crossitalk
from negative to posiitve frequencies is important and this
demonstrates that the mirror signal suppression is more than
64 dB in the complete passband. The measured distortion free
dynamic range at the input is 94.2 dB. Together with an
accurate quadrature downconverter [51 this allows for the
realisation of highly integrated high performance low -IF
receivers, totally insensitive to parasitic baseband signals.
111 J. Wenin, "IC's for Digital Cellular Communication," Proc.
ESSCIRC, pp.1-10, Ulm, Sept. 1994.
[2] T. Okanobu, H. Tomiyama and H. Arimoto, "Advanced Low-
Voltage Single Chip Radio IC," IEEE Tram. on Consumer
Electronics, pp.465-475, March 1992.
[3] J.O. Voorman, "Asymmetric polyphase filter," US Patent
4,914,408,1990, 1990.
[4] N. Boutin, "Complex Signals," RF-design, pp.27-33, Dec.
1989.
[5] J. Crols and M. Steyaerf "A Fully Integrated 900 MHz CLIOS
Double Quadrature Downconverter," Proc. ISSCC,
Session 8.1, San Francisco, Feb. 1995.
[6] A.M. Durham, W. Redman-White and J.B. Hughes, "High-
Linearity Continuous-Time Filter in 5-V VLSI CMOS," IEEE
J. of Solid-Srate Circuits, pp.1270-1276, Sept. 1992.
Quadrature
Downconverter C ,b

--
41

Fig. 3 : The active-RC implementation

t=+
20

Lo4
Oscillator
Shifter

Fig. 1 : The low-IF receiver architecture

-60

-80

-100
-1000 -750 -500 -250 0 250 .500 750 1000
Freq [kHz]

Fig. 4 : Microphotograph of the asymmetric polyphase filter Fig. 5 : The transfer functions of the polyphase filter

1995 Symposium on VLSl Circuits Digest of Technical Papers 88