Flexible Receiver Architecture for Multiple Component Carrier Aggregation in Down Link

A method of processing a wireless communication signal having a plurality of component carriers comprising:

• receiving three component carrier signals of a wireless communication signal transmitted from one or more transmitting source, in which the plurality of component carrier signals are used to extend a bandwidth of the wireless communication signal;
• utilizing a plurality of filters at a receiver front-end to filter the wireless communication signal into separate input paths, in which the filters are configured to provide filtering that correspond to frequency bands and in which the filters are also grouped into a plurality of filter groupings to provide for respective frequency band groupings, wherein two of the three component carrier signals are filtered by one filter when intra-band filtering and wherein at least two of the three component carrier signals are filtered by different filters when inter-band filtering, based on carrier frequencies of the three component carrier signals;
• utilizing a plurality of amplifiers to amplify respective filtered component carrier signals, in which respective input paths are separated into a first amplifier path and a second amplifier path, wherein first outputs of the amplifiers of the first amplifier path for the respective frequency band groupings are configured for input into a respective first mixer stage and second outputs of the amplifiers of the second amplifier path for the respective frequency band groupings are configured for input into a respective second mixer stage;
• utilizing a first of a plurality of local oscillator signals to down-convert in a corresponding first mixer stage, a first filtered component carrier signal present at one of the first outputs of the first amplifier path;
• utilizing a second of the plurality of local oscillator signals to down-convert in a corresponding second mixer stage, a second filtered component carrier signal present at one of the second outputs of the second amplifier path;
• and
• utilizing a third of the plurality of local oscillator signals to down-convert in a corresponding third mixer stage, a third filtered component carrier signal present at one of the first outputs of the first amplifier path of a different band grouping than the first filtered component carrier signal, wherein the first local oscillator signal for the corresponding first mixer stage, the second local oscillator signal for the corresponding second mixer stage and third local oscillator signal for the corresponding third mixer stage are of different local oscillator frequencies, in order to aggregate the three component carrier signals.

An apparatus to process a wireless communication signal having a plurality of component carriers comprising:

• a plurality of amplifiers configured into a grouping of frequency bands and to receive three component carrier signals of a wireless communication signal transmitted from one or more transmitting source, in which the three component carrier signals are used to extend a bandwidth of the wireless communication signal and in which the three component carrier signals have been filtered into separate input paths to the plurality of amplifiers based on frequencies of the component carrier signals, wherein a first amplifier amplifies a first component carrier signal, a second amplifier amplifies a second component carrier signal and a third amplifier amplifies a third component carrier signal;
• a plurality of mixers configured with the amplifiers to have a first mixer down-convert a first output signal of the first amplifier having the first component carrier signal based on a first local oscillator signal, a second mixer down-convert a second output signal of the second amplifier having the second component carrier signal based on a second local oscillator signal and a third mixer down-converts a third output signal of the third amplifier having the third component carrier signal based on a third local oscillator signal, wherein at least one of the first, second or third amplifier is configured for receiving a component carrier of a different frequency band grouping allocation, and wherein the first, second and third mixers are configured to use different local oscillator signals based on respective frequencies of the component carrier signals;
• and
• a plurality of baseband processors with a first baseband processor processing a first down-converted output from the first mixer, a second baseband processor processing a second down-converted output from the second mixer and a third baseband processor processing a third down-converted output from the third mixer to baseband process the three down-converted signals to aggregate the three component carrier signals.