Design of Monolithic RF CMOS Sub-mW Self-Oscillating-Mixers

In this paper, different topologies of RF self-oscillating mixers (SOM), stacking the voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) and the mixer on top of each other, are assessed. Their design considerations to address sub-mW operation suitable to ultra-low power applications are presented. Two configurations of SOM circuits are implemented in 130nm CMOS technology. The obtained results are presented and performances in terms of gain, noise, linearity, area, power consumption and stability over process and mismatch are compared and discussed.