A Low-Power Receiver Utilizing a Fully Integrated Distributed Mixer

Low-power radios enables a variety of emerging applications for the internet-of-things (IoT) and ubiquitous sensing spaces. Reduction of power consumption through the employment of envelope-detector based receivers has been a research area of interest for over a decade. Specifically, multi-tone receivers have emerged as an advantageous technology due to reductions in phase noise requirements. While previous works have demonstrated sensitivities close to that of conventional receivers, they often struggle in crowded environments, or rely on expensive off-chip passives. Both problems are antithetical to the goal of widespread deployment. This presentation will cover a novel mixer-first architecture coined as a “Distributed Mixer” which was developed to address the challenge of integrating front-end passives in low-power receivers. The distributed mixer is implemented with a multi-tone, uncertain-IF receiver chain which provides state-of-the-art sensitivity, interferer tolerance and a high level of integratio

MAJOR ADVISOR: Arun Natarajan
CO-MAJOR ADVISOR: Matthew Johnston
COMMITTEE: Un-Ku Moon
COMMITTEE: Tejasvi Anad
GCR: Ravi Balasubramanian