A 2.2-3.6 GHz CMOS Reconfigurable Fourth-Order Bandpass Filter With Compact Size and High Selectivity Using Transformer-Type Resonators

A compact reconfigurable CMOS bandpass filter (BPF) with high selectivity is proposed using transformer-type resonators in this article. The transformer-type resonator is constructed by a transformer loaded with parallel varactors for frequency tuning, and two varactors are then added across primary wind and secondary wind for coupling tuning. With the transformer-type structure, one resonator is formed inside another resonator, thus fully utilizing the chip area and resulting in a miniaturized structure. Magnetic and electrical couplings are formed within the transformer-type resonator and facilitate the bandwidth (BW) tuning. The quality factor (Q) of each resonator is improved by cross-coupled negative resistance structure. Meanwhile, two pairs of transformer-type resonators are placed side-by-side and naturally form a quadruplet structure; as a result, two transmission zeros (TZs) are introduced at each side of the passband thus significantly improving the selectivity and stopband rejection of the BPF. The proposed tunable on-chip BPF is manufactured by a commercial 55 nm bulk CMOS technology with a core area of 1.48 × 0.54 mm2. The filter center frequency (CF) can be tuned from 2.2 to 3.6 GHz, while the 3 dB fractional BW (FBW) can be tuned from 14% to 33%. The shape factor of the proposed filter is 1.4-1.9.