Analysis and Design of a Passive Receiver Front-End Using an Inductive Antenna Impedance

This paper presents the analysis and design of a passive front-end (PFE) for low-power receivers. The freedom of the antenna impedance is observed and exploited to propose an inductive-antenna-based PFE. Analytical methods for the desired signal transfer and noise behavior of the proposed PFE are presented to offer insight into the proposed technique and facilitate the design. The analysis suggests that the inductive-antenna-based PFE offers higher voltage gain and lower noise figure than a standard 50 Ω-based PFE does, which is confirmed by simulations. The proposed PFE and a baseband bandpass amplifier are designed in 0.18-μm CMOS technology for the 402-405 MHz band of the IEEE 802.15.6 WBAN standard. Their combination exhibits a passive voltage gain of 11.6 dB, a NF of 14.7 dB, and an in-band IIP3 of 3.6 dBm, while dissipating 1.1 mW from a 1.2 V supply.