A low-power sub-GHz RF receiver front-end with enhanced blocker tolerance

This paper presents a class-AB sub-GHz RF receiver front-end suitable for ultra-low power application. By exploiting transistors' class-AB operation in both the RF and baseband sections, the receiver front-end achieves a very low sensitivity and an elevated blocker tolerance while keeping a low power consumption. Such performance makes the receiver suitable for both short-range (e.g. 802.15.4) and long-range (e.g. LoRa) applications. The proposed RF front-end has been implemented in 0.13um CMOS technology, operates in the 868/915MHz ISM bands, and exhibits an in-band gain of 50dB, noise figure of 2.7dB, out-of-band HP3 of +2dBm, out-of-band IIP2 of +37dBm, out-of-band P1dB of -10.5dBm, while draining 2.1mA from a 1.2 V supply