Quad-band receiver front-end module using SiGe BiCMOS MMICs and LTCC triplexer

Abstract

This paper describes the design and measurement of a quad-band low noise receiver front-end module. It consists of a quintplexer and receiver front-end ICs. The quintplexer is consisted of a low loss triplexer fabricated using low temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) technology, a commercial duplexer, and a commercial band-pass filter. The receiver front-end ICs were fabricated using 0.25 μm SiGe BiCMOS process technology and consists of wideband variable gain low noise amplifiers, step attenuators, and down-conversion mixers. The module can concurrently receive quad-band signals in frequencies at 300 MHz, 900 MHz, 2.4GHz, and 5 GHz. The quad-band module is 5 × 5 cm in size. The measured noise figures were under 4.9 dB and the conversion gain were above 24 dB at the frequencies of 300 MHz, 900 MHz, and 2.4 GHz. At the 5GHz frequency, the measured noise figures was under 6.2 dB, and conversion gain was above 16 dB.