Apparatus comprising a local oscillator for driving a mixer
AssigneeRenesas Design Netherlands B.V.
InventorsMaryam Dodangeh, Mark Oude Alink, Bram Nauta
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Abstract
An apparatus comprising a local oscillator (LO) for driving a mixer, the LO being configured to oscillate at an oscillation frequency, and generate a first set of LO signals, wherein each of the first set of LO signals has a LO signal frequency equal to a first multiplication factor m multiplied by the oscillation frequency, the first multiplication factor m, being an integer greater than or equal to two, and each of the first set of LO signals is separated by adjacent LO signals by a phase difference equal to 360° divided by a first variable n, the first variable n being an integer that is greater than or equal to two.
Claims22
An apparatus comprising a local oscillator (LO) for driving a mixer, the LO being configured to:
- oscillate at an oscillation frequency;
- and
- generate a first set of LO signals;
- wherein:
- each of the first set of LO signals has a LO signal frequency equal to a first multiplication factor m multiplied by the oscillation frequency, the first multiplication factor m, being an integer greater than or equal to two;
- and
- each of the first set of LO signals is separated by adjacent LO signals by a phase difference equal to 360° divided by a first variable n, the first variable n being an integer that is greater than or equal to two;
- and wherein
- the LO comprises a plurality of frequency multiplication circuits for generating the first set of LO signals,
- whereby the apparatus further comprises a buffer circuit, the mixer configured to receive the first set of LO signals via the buffer circuit.
A method of operating an apparatus comprising a local oscillator (LO) for driving a mixer, the LO oscillates at an oscillation frequency, the method comprising generating a first set of LO signals using the LO, wherein each of the first set of LO signals has a LO signal frequency equal to a first multiplication factor m multiplied by the oscillation frequency, the first multiplication factor m being an integer greater than or equal to two, and each of the first set of LO signals is separated by adjacent LO signals by a phase difference equal to 360° divided by a first variable n, the first variable n being an integer that is greater than or equal to two;
- and wherein
- the LO comprises a plurality of frequency multiplication circuits for generating the first set of LO signals, the first set of LO signals being received by the mixer via a buffer circuit.
An apparatus comprising a local oscillator (LO) for driving a mixer, the LO being configured to:
- oscillate at an oscillation frequency;
- and
- generate a first set of LO signals;
- wherein:
- each of the first set of LO signals has a LO signal frequency equal to a first multiplication factor m multiplied by the oscillation frequency, the first multiplication factor m, being an integer greater than or equal to two;
- and
- each of the first set of LO signals is separated by adjacent LO signals by a phase difference equal to 360° divided by a first variable n, the first variable n being an integer that is greater than or equal to two;
- wherein
- the LO is configured to generate a second set of LO signals, wherein each of the second set of LO signals has a LO signal frequency equal to the first multiplication factor m multiplied by the oscillation frequency, each of the second set of LO signals is separated by adjacent LO signals within the second set by a phase difference equal to 360° divided by the first variable n, and each of the second set of LO signals has a phase difference of 180° divided by the first variable n when compared with a corresponding LO signal within the first set of LO signals,
- whereby the apparatus further comprises a buffer circuit, the mixer configured to receive the first set of LO signals and the second set of LO signals via the buffer circuit.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.