Design and implementation of a Low Power Mixer-first Receiver for IEEE 802.11ah standard

IoT refers to a network of connected devices that exchange data for different applications using different wireless standards such as Cellular, ZigBee, Bluetooth, Mesh Networks, and the widely used WiFi. For IoT applications that do not require high data rates but require long-range data transmission and low power operation, a sub 1GHz WiFi standard - 802.11ah - was introduced. This thesis focuses on implementing a low power receiver design for IoT application. A reconfigurable zero-IF (ZIF)/ low-IF (LIF) architecture is designed to support the 802.11ah specifications. In the implemented SAW-less receiver design, the input RF signal is directly downconverted by mixing operation to baseband frequencies by current-mode passive mixers. The baseband provides the required selectivity and sensitivity of the system. The receiver provides a 24 – 44 dB programmable gain across 1,2,4 MHz bandwidth. It supports an ACR/NACR of 17 dB/32 dB with an overall power consumption of 4 mW at 6 dB NF. The designed receiver is implemented in TSMC 40 nm and is in the fabrication process