Revista: Progress in Electromagnetics Research-Pier. Julio 2012

Autores: Cristina de la Morena; Mateo Burgos

This paper presents an experimental performance comparison among three RF architectures that are very suitable for Software Defned Radio (SDR) implementation: zero-IF, low-IF, and six-port  network. A six-port receiver and a dual zero-IF/low-IF receiver have been developed for this purpose. Six-port receiver is a very promising and fexible RF architecture for the low-cost implementation of integrated microwave and millimeter-wave systems. Competitive advantages such as ultra broadband behavior, low-cost, reconfigurability, and low power consumption, point to the six-port architecture as a good candidate to implement a SDR. However, two issues on broad-band six-port receivers require intensive research: dynamic range extension, and miniaturization. In this paper, two solutions are proposed to solve these problems: the use of biased detector diodes for dynamic range extension, and the use of low temperature cofired ceramic (LTCC) technology for six-port reduction. The measurement results indicate that the six-port receiver shows high potential bene¯ts and advantages compared to conventional zero-IF and low-IF receivers. In addition, the capability of the six-port architecture to operate as both zero-IF and low-IF receivers has been experimentally demonstrated for the first time.