A 9.4-11.4 GHz Low-If Linear Transmitter Front-End with 47.2 DB Dynamic Range and 0.5 DB Gain Resolution in $40-\text{nm}$ CMOS

This paper presents a linearity enhanced wide dynamic range transmitter (TX) front-end with low intermediate frequency (IF) input in a <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$40-\text{nm}$</tex> CMOS technology. The complementary nMOS and pMOS transimpedance amplifier (TIA) is utilized as the IF input stage for wideband impedance matching. A pseudo-differential up-conversion mixer is adopted to significantly suppress LO leakage. The wide dynamic range of gain control with high resolution is achieved by the digital controlled 7-bit attenuator with symmetric configuration. The fabricated TX front-end exhibits a minimum IP1dB of <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathbf{- 3. 3 6 dBm}$</tex> from 9.4 to 11.4 GHz and a 47.2 dB dynamic range with 0.5 dB tuning step. The measured root-mean-square (RMS) amplitude and phase error are below 0.89 dB and 4.9°, respectively. Besides, it supports 400 MHz 64 QAM/ 500 MHz 256 QAM signal with EVM of <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$-33.1 /-32.3 \text{dB}$</tex> at <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$\mathbf{1 0. 7 GHz}$</tex>.