A quadrature mixer with a shared transconductor stage is analyzed,including voltage conversion gain, linearity, noise figure, and image rejection. The analysis indicates it has better performance than a conventional Gilbert mixer pair in commutating mode. A quadrature down-conversion mixer based on this topology is designed and optimized for an ultra high frequency RFID reader. Operating in the 915MHz ISM band, the presented quadrature mixer measures a conversion gain of 12.5dB,an IIP3 of 10dBm, an IIP2 of 58dBm, and an SSB noise figure of 17.6riB. The chip was fabricated in a 0. 18μm 1P6M RF CMOS process and consumes only 3mA of current from a 1.8V power supply.
