Synthetic Diversity for Flexible Interference-Tolerant Receivers

Abstract

152 pagesWith the growing demand for higher data rates and an increasing number of connected devices, modern wireless communication systems face significant spectrum congestion and interference challenges. In particular, out-of-band (OOB) interferers can give rise to in-band artifacts (IBAs) such as reciprocal mixing by the local oscillator's (LO) spurs and phase noise (PN), third-order intermodulation (IM3) artifacts, and unwanted harmonic down-conversion (HDC) artifacts. In this work, I will present a novel receiver architecture to suppress these in-band artifacts while maintaining the flexibility to tune the reception frequency across an octave. The same architecture also enables simultaneous reception of multiple bands, making it applicable to emerging use cases such as carrier aggregation and cooperative spectrum sharing. Theoretical analysis, design methodology, and measurement results from fabricated prototype chips are presented to validate the proposed concepts. Passive mixer-first versions of the same receiver architecture are also explored for improved performance and additional capabilities.2027-06-0