365
A Charge-Injection Method
for Gilbert Cell Biasing
Leonard A. MacEachern, Tajinder Manku
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G1
Abstract- A Gilbert cell mixer biasing topol-
ogy is presented. The new biasing technique of-
fers several key advantages over the traditional
biasing arrangement. First, the new topology
allows the designer t o easily adjust the bias cur-
rent present in the Gilbert cell input transistors,
while maintaining bias currents in other por-
tions of the circuit. Second, the mixer linear-
ity can be improved using this biasing method
by accurate adjustment of the input MOSFET
operating point. Third, the biasing method re-
duces the “voltage headroom” difficulties inher-
ent t o the Gilbert cell, which uses a stacked ar-
rangement of transistors.
The importance of these adjustments with re-
gard to the mixer conversion gain and IP3 is
examined.
Keywords- Gilbert cell, mixer, RF CMOS, bi-
asing
I. INTRODUCTION
T HE rapid expansion of the wireless com-
munications infrastructure is a global phe-
nomenon with global implications. The desire
for untethered communications has produced a
consumer level demand for radio communica-
tions equipment. This equipment encompasses
the familiar form of the cellular telephone, and
also that of the myriad of other wireless sys-
tems such as direct to home satellite television
and wireless local area networks.
This research was supported in part by NSERC and Mite1
Semiconductor. The authors are with the Department
of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of
Waterloo, Canada. email: lmaceach@venus.uwaterloo.ca,
tmanku@venus.uwaterloo.ca
01998 IEEE
0-7803-4314-X/98/$10.00
Success of a consumer-level wireless product
currently demands low-cost , low-power, and
high-volume techniques. These requirements
are often at odds with the technical require-
ments of the communication system specifica-
tions.
A fully integrated transceiver architecture in
a high-volume, high-yield process would be a
welcome achievement. Progress is being made
in this area on many fronts[l]. At this point
in time, CMOS is poised to become the tech-
nology of choice for mass-produced integrated
transceivers[2]. Unfortunately, some of the cir-
cuitry originally developed for bipolar technol-
ogy does not lend itself easily to CMOS imple-
mentation. One such example is the Gilbert
mixer [31.
In this paper we examine some of the oper-
ating characteristics of the CMOS version of
Gilbert’s mixer. A straightforward biasing ar-
rangement, is introduced which serves to im-
prove the operation of the mixer with respect
to the performance metrics discussed.
11. BACKGROUND
A. CMOS Gilbert Cell
The majority of the popular CMOS mixer
topologies are based on the traditional bipolar
cross-coupled differential modulator stage in-
troduced by Gilbert [4]. The topology of the
CMOS version of the Gilbert Cell is similar
to the bipolar version orginally proposed by
Gilbert. However, the operation of the mixer
proposed by Gilbert is due to the translinear
 366

behaviour of the bipolar transistor. The term

“translinear” was coined by Gilbert and the ef-
fect is a feature of the exponential voltage to
current relationship exhibited by bipolar tran-
sistors. This phenomenon does not translate
directly into an equivalent MOS current be-
haviour. The MOS counterpart of the tradi-
tional bipolar mixer is therefore operated in a
switching mode and the operation of the circuit.
is by a different mechanism.

Vdd
I 1

+RL t.. Fig. 2. Gilbert Mixer operational model.

Position A +--To --+

Fig. 3. Switching action of the commutating MOS-

FETs. Effectively, this is the LO signal for a
MOSFET-based Gilbert mixer.
RF-

ysis of the outsput,is possible with a Fourier

Series expansion of the switching action.
For Kn(t)= x.f(t) cos(w,.ft),the output, of a
Q Iss downconversion mixer is approximately
I
- - 2
Vmt(t)M gmRL-cos((u,f
7r
- W L O ) ~ ) % . S ( ~ (1)
)
Fig. 1. Simplified MOSFET version of the Gilbert
Mixer. 111. MIXER CELL FIGURES
O F MERIT

The Gilbert Cell mixer shown in Fig. 1 op- A. Gain

erates on a switched current principle. The Fkom (l), the mixer gain for a downconver-
general concept is shown in Fig. 2. Each time sion CMOS Gilbert type mixer is given by
the switches change position in tandem, the di-
rection of the small signal current through the
load resistors reverses. The differential output
vokage taken across these two resistors there-
fore reverses in step with the LO input wave- Since the RF input MOSFETs operate in the
form. If the switches change position according saturation region, g7rLcan be replaced wit,h it’s
to the waveform in Fig. 3, the polarity of the approximation formula[6], yielding
small signal voltage measured across the load
resistance is reversed at the rising and falling
edges of the waveform [5]. While at position
“A” t8heoutput is given by g7nK7LRL, and while The mixer gain is therefore proportional t o
at position “B”by -g7nl&RL. A simple anal- vz.
 367
B. IIP3
Assuming that, the commutating MOSFETs
act as perfect, switches, the main contribution
of dist,ort,ionin the mixer is from the R F input,
MOSFETs. The input, MOSFET transconduc-
tance can be modeled as a memoryless non-
linear syst,em. For small uZ7,( t ), a Taylor Series
approximation can be used:
This t#ransferfunction is well studied, and
known to yield intermodulation components
when inputs containing multiple frequencies
are passed through the system. The “IIP3”
provides a measure of t8hesignal levels that can
be accomodated by the mixer before third or-
der distortion terms overwhelm the desired sig-
nal. The IP3 of the CMOS Gilbert mixer is
approximately given as
(5)
Hence the IP3 is proportional t o the square root
of the bias current flowing in the input MOS-
FE Ts.
IV. CHARGEINJECTION
TECHNIQUE
In t,he previous section both the mixer con-
version gain (equation (3)) and the mixer IP3
(equation (5)) were shown to be proportional
to t8hesquare root of the bias current. Conse-
quently, it appears that, an arbitrary increase
in the bias current can improve the conversion
gain and IP3 by a commensurate amount. Un-
fot>unately,t8hisis not the case.
Consider the consequence of increasing the
bias current,. Ohm’s Law dict,atesthat the volt8-
age dropped across RL increases. Therefore,
for constant v d , less voltage head-room re-
mains for the stacked active devices. The out-
put signal will therefore eventually compress at
a lower level of signal input. IP3 is then lower,
and the overall performance of the mixer is de-
graded.
A. Fundamental Idea
The performance of the CMOS mixer can be
improved by injecting the required additional
bias current. into the RF input MOSFETs. by-
passing the commutating MOSFETs and t,he
load resistors. The technique is illustrat#edin
Fig. 4. Several conditions must be carefully
RF+’51
$Iss+Ix
Fig. 4. A charge-injection technique for irnprovirig the
conversion gain and IP3 of a CMOS Gilbert mixer.
controlled if this technique is t o succeed. First,
the output impedance of the current sources
must be high relat#ivet o the input resistance
seen at t,he injection node. The current source
should not load the mixer. Second, the bias
voltsages must be carefully arranged t,o main-
tain all devices in saturation. Third, looking
into the drain of t8heRF input MOSFETs, the
current, source sees a high impedance. Any
mismatch between the injected current and the
current drawn out at the source-tail can cause
the injection node t o (‘got o rail”. A common-
mode feedback structure can help prevent t,his
problem. An example is shown in Fig. 5.
B. Noise Reduction
Each of the current sources indicated in
Fig. 4 will contribute t o the mixer noise. An
 368
klkRF-
M2
Fig. 5. Common-mode feedback for current-injection.
improved topology is shown in Fig. 6. In this
Vdd
tRL f RL
LO+ 4 k LO+
I
9 ISS+IX
Fig. 6. Improved charge-injection technique.
topology, a single current, source provides the
current injection in common-mode fashion t o
t8hemixer branches. The noise is therefore ide-
ally removed at the differential output.
The impedences “Z”are chosen to block the
R F frequency. For example, a parallel “LC”
tank circuit can funct,ion as a current notch,
preventing an AC short-circuit, between the
mixer branches. An example is shown in Fig. 7.
Fig. 7. An example of charge injection with reduced
noise conseqiierices.
V. CONCLUSIONS
A possible method of improving the conver-
sion gain and IP3 of the CMOS Gilbert mixer
has been discussed. The technique is straight-
forward, and can lead t o moderate performance
gains.
Simulations of the proposed ttopologiesincor-
porating more advanced current sources and
including sensitivity analysis is the next logical
step in the development of this biasing tech-
nique.
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