Analog Devices International Unlimited Company

Athanasios Ramkaj

Gabriele Manganaro

Filip Tavernier

Siddharth Devarajan

Front-end circuitry is difficult to design for high sample rate, wide bandwidth receivers with high performance requirements on noise and linearity. One exemplary front-end circuitry is integrated on-chip with the RF ADC in a receiver, and the circuitry implements ESD protection, attenuation, and gain. The circuitry includes a multi-tap filter with LC circuits, and the filter implements a highly linear filter. Advantageously, the capacitors in the LC circuits are also used for ESD protection. Additionally, tunable attenuator cells are implemented across the multi-tap filter to provide a wide range of variable attenuation. The circuitry can further include a fixed or variable gain stage at the output. The resulting circuitry offers variable gain and attenuation while meeting bandwidth, noise, and linearity requirements.

Front-end for receivers with RF sampling ADCS

High-performance radio frequency analog-to-digital converters (RF ADCs) demand high bandwidth, high linearity, and low noise input amplifiers. A Class-AB amplifier, including common-gate transistor devices and common-source transistor devices operating in parallel, offers high bandwidth and high linearity, while offering lower power operation when compared to Class-A amplifiers. The Class-AB amplifier can be followed by a Class-AB unity gain buffer comprising common-source transistor devices to provide additional isolation for the RF ADC from the circuitry preceding the Class-AB amplifier.

Growing community of inventors

Leuven, Belgium

Athanasios Ramkaj