A Bluetooth Low-Energy Transceiver with 3.7-mW All-Digital Transmitter, 2.75-mW High-IF Discrete-Time Receiver, and TX/RX Switchable On-Chip Matching Network

Kuo, Feng-Wei; Binsfeld Ferreira, S.; Chen, Huan-Neng Ron; Cho, Lan-Chou; Jou, Chewn-Pu; Hsueh, Fu-Lung; Madadi, I.; Tohidian, M.; Shahmohammadi, M.; Babaie, M.; Staszewski, R.B.

doi:10.1109/JSSC.2017.2654322

A Bluetooth Low-Energy Transceiver with 3.7-mW All-Digital Transmitter, 2.75-mW High-IF Discrete-Time Receiver, and TX/RX Switchable On-Chip Matching Network

Title

A Bluetooth Low-Energy Transceiver with 3.7-mW All-Digital Transmitter, 2.75-mW High-IF Discrete-Time Receiver, and TX/RX Switchable On-Chip Matching Network

Author

Kuo, Feng-Wei (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC))
Binsfeld Ferreira, S. (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul)
Chen, Huan-Neng Ron (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC))
Cho, Lan-Chou (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC))
Jou, Chewn-Pu (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC))
Hsueh, Fu-Lung (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC))
Madadi, I. (TU Delft Electronics)
Tohidian, M. (TU Delft Electronics)
Shahmohammadi, M. (TU Delft Electronic Components, Technology and Materials)
Babaie, M. (TU Delft Electronics)
Staszewski, R.B. (TU Delft Electronics)

Date

2017

Abstract

We present an ultra-low-power Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) transceiver (TRX) for the Internet of Things (IoT) optimized for digital 28-nm CMOS. A transmitter (TX) employs an all-digital phase-locked loop (ADPLL) with a switched current-source digitally controlled oscillator (DCO) featuring low frequency pushing, and class-E/F₂ digital power amplifier (PA), featuring high efficiency. Low 1/ f DCO noise allows the ADPLL to shut down after acquiring lock. The receiver operates in discrete time at high sampling rate (10 Gsamples/s) with intermediate frequency placed beyond 1/ f noise corner of MOS devices. New multistage multirate charge-sharing bandpass filters are adapted to achieve high out-of-band linearity, low noise, and low power consumption. An integrated on-chip matching network serves to both PA and low-noise transconductance amplifier, thus allowing a 1-pin direct antenna connection with no external band-selection filters. The TRX consumes 2.75 mW on the RX side and 3.7 mW on the TX side when delivering 0 dBm in BLE.

Subject

All-digital PLL (ADPLL)
Bluetooth low energy (BLE)
digitally controlled oscillator (DCO)
discrete-Time (DT) receiver (RX)
Gaussian frequency shift keying (GFSK)
intermediate frequency (IF)
Internet of Things (IoT)
low-power (LP) transceiver (TRX)
matching network
transmit/receive (T/R) switch
transmitter (TX)