Design of Reconfigurable dB-Linear Variable-Gain Amplifier and Switchable-Order gm-C Filter in 65-nm CMOS Technology

A system approach for a power-scalable analog baseband (ABB) design is presented in this article. Using this approach, the energy efficiency of an ABB can be maximized without compromising any other important specifications. To fulfill the feasibility study, a switchable-order g(m)-C lowpass filter (LPF) along with a voltage-controlled programmable-gain amplifier (VC-PGA) is designed. The selectivity of the LPF can be linearly scaled with power consumption. In addition, the power consumption of VC-PGA has a binary-weighted manner. In contrast to conventional PGAs, the gain step of the designed PGA can be continuously tuned by a control voltage. To prove the concept, the ABB is implemented in 65-nm CMOS technology. The measurements show that the frequency responses of the ABB can be configured as either fifth or seventh order with 16 gain steps. The bandwidth is approximately 50 MHz for all cases, and the gain step can be continuously tuned between 0 and 3 dB. At the high-gain mode, the output third-order intercept point and the input-referred noise of the LPF and PGA are approximate to be 8 dBm and 5 nV/sqrt Hz, respectively. The maximum power consumption of the ABB, excluding the output buffer, is approximately 19.8 mW with a 1.2-V supply voltage. The die area, excluding the pads, is only 0.18 mm(2).