The New Party Line: Power-Frequency Tradeoff in Linear BiCMOS Passive Mixers for Cellular Base Stations

This article will demonstrate how optimum device sizing is leveraged to design highly linear and low-noise mixers in various cellular base stations with bands ranging from 800 to 3,500 MHz. The device design approach demonstrated herein also shows the limits in achievable distortion performance for a given technology, enabling the system designer to make tradeoff evaluations between the various components in the system.