AD8366
Rev. A | Page 18 of 28
RF
LO
MATCHING
NETWORK
PAD
FILTER
BALUN
LC LOW-
PASS
FILTER
LC LOW-
PASS
FILTER
LC LOW-
PASS
FILTER
LC LOW-
PASS
FILTER
ADL5523
ADL5380
AD8366
ADL5523
0
90
ADF4350
TO
ADC
07
58
4-
04
7
Figure 51. Direct Conversion Receiver Block Diagram
DIRECT CONVERSION RECEIVER DESIGN
A direct conversion receiver directly demodulates an RF modulated
carrier to baseband frequencies, where the signals can be detected
and the conveyed information recovered. Eliminating the IF
stages and directly converting the signal to effectively zero IF
results in reduced component count. The image problems
associated with the traditional superheterodyne architectures
can be ignored as well. However, there are different challenges
associated with direct conversion that include LO leakage, dc
offsets, quadrature imperfections, and image rejection. LO
leakage causes self mixing that results in squaring of the LO
waveform which generates a dc offset that falls in band for the
direct conversion receiver. Residual dc offsets create a similar
interfering signal that falls in band. I/Q amplitude and phase
mismatch lead to degraded SNR performance and poor image
rejection in the direct conversion system.
Figure 51 shows the
block diagram for a direct conversion receiver system.
QUADRATURE ERRORS AND IMAGE REJECTION
An overall RF-to-baseband EVM performance was measured
with the
ADL5380 IQ demodulator preceding the AD8366, as
shown in
Figure 56. In this setup, no LC low-pass filters were used
between the
ADL5380 and AD8366. A 1900 MHz W-CDMA RF
signal with a 3.84 MHz symbol rate was used. The local oscillator
(LO) is set at 1900 MHz to obtain a zero IF baseband signal.
The gain of the AD8366 is set to maximum gain (~20.25 dB).
Figure 52 shows the SNR vs. the input power of the cascaded
system for a 5 MHz analysis bandwidth. The broad input power
range over which the system exhibits strong SNR performance
reflects the superior dynamic range of the AD8366.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
–75
–65
–55
–45
–35
–25
–15
–5
5
S
NR
(
d
B)
INPUT POWER (dBm)
07
58
4-
04
8
Figure 52. SNR vs. RF Input Power Level
The image rejection ratio is the ratio of the intermediate frequency
produced by the image frequency. The image rejection ratio is
expressed in decibels (dB). Appropriate image rejection is critical
because the image power can be much higher than that of the
desired signal, thereby plaguing the downconversion process.
Amplitude and phase balance between the I/Q channels are
critical for high levels of image rejection. Image rejection of
greater than 47 dB was measured for the combined
ADL5380and the AD8366 for a 5 MHz baseband frequency, as seen in
Figure 53. This level of image rejection corresponds to a ±0.5°
phase mismatch and a ±0.05 dB of amplitude mismatch for the
combined ADL5380 and AD8366. Looking back to
Figure 7 and
Figure 10, the AD8366 exhibits only ±0.05 dB of amplitude mismatch
and ±0.05o of phase mismatch, thus implying that the AD8366
does not introduce additional amplitude and phase imbalance.
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
900
1500
1300
1100
1700 1900 2100 2300 2500 2700 2900
RF FREQUENCY (MHz)
IM
A
G
E
RE
JE
CT
IO
N
(
d
B)
07
58
4-
04
9
Figure 53. Image Rejection vs. RF Frequency