Heterodyne and Homodyne Receivers
Heterodyne and Homodyne Receivers
Heterodyne and Homodyne Receivers
ABSTRACT
Two available choices for receiver architecture in wireless communications
are Homodyne and Heterodyne receivers. Among them, heterodyne receiver
was the leading choice in the past compared to homodyne receiver
regarding facing challenges in suppressing interference and noise.
However, Direct Conversion is becoming popular for wireless
communications due to its lower cost. The goal of this paper is to discuss
the key problems and tradeoffs in the design of Heterodyne and Homodyne
receiver.
Keywords: Homodyne, Heterodyne, Receiver, Architecture, Wireless,
Communications.
I. INTRODUCTION
One of the most difficult design element in any communication system is the receiver. A
receiver should have low noise figure, low intermodulation distortion, high dynamic
range, satisfactory gain flatness across the band, low phase noise, sufficient selectivity
and suitable BER [1]. Also every design has certain cost constrains. This can be
considered the most critical specification for any architecture. The preferred receiver
design should be lower in cost for successful implementation.
*
Assistant Professor, Department of EEE, United International University, Dhaka.
**
Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Manarat International University
, Gulshan, Dhaka.
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Manarat International University Studies, 2 (1): 152-157, December 2011
A. Image Frequency
B. Half IF Frequency
In addition to the desired band of interest in, an interferer (in+LO)/2 is also received
by the Heterodyne receiver. If there is a second order distortion in the received signal and
LO contains second order distortion as well, one of the component of IF signal will be
(in+LO)-2LO=IF. This is the interference at the output of mixer caused by the half IF
frequency[2].
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A Comparative Analysis between Homodyne and Heterodyne Receiver Architecture
Figure 3. Third order product (2F1-F2) and (2F2-F1) from input frequencies F1 and F2
When two signals with different frequencies are applied to a nonlinear system, the
output will show some non harmonic frequency components. This is called
intermodulation (IM) In Heterodyne receiver linearity is measured based on third order
distortion level of the receiver. If the difference between two interferer, 1 and 2, is
small, the product (21-2) or (22-1) will appear very close to 1 and 2. Due to this
fact it is very hard to reject this interference even with a filter[4]. Moreover, for every dB
increment of input power 3rd order product will increase by 3 dB. At low frequencies, it is
common to quantify the nonlinearity of a circuit by indicating the distortion in the output
signal [5].
It is also called “direct conversion” or “zero IF” architecture, since the received
signal is directly down converted to baseband. In a homodyne receiver, the desired signal
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is first selected by a filter, amplified by a LNA and then frequency translated by a mixer
to DC. Direct conversion needs more linear mixer to attain the same performance as
heterodyne [6]. Although the implementation looks much simpler than heterodyne,
homodyne faces more challenges in noise suppression. The practical way to improve any
receiver system performance is by improving the sensitivity and the selectivity to reduce
interference from unwanted sources. [7]
A. DC Offset
As discussed above the homodyne receiver down converts the signal to zero
frequency. As a result any additional DC offset voltage will corrupt the down converted
signal[6]. Later stages in the receiver will be saturated due to this offset. DC offset in
Homodyne Receiver is more severe than Heterodyne architecture since most of the
signal gain in direct conversion is in the base band block[4]. DC-offset appears mainly
due to LO leakage. Constant DC-offset can be compensated by measuring it without
signal and then subtracting it during reception. However in TDMA systems, different
channels may have different signal levels and DC-offsets, therefore compensation is
difficult.
B. I/Q Mismatch
(a) (b)
(b)
Figure 6. Effect of I-Q mismatch. Constellation (a) with gain error, (b) with phase error.
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A Comparative Analysis between Homodyne and Heterodyne Receiver Architecture
C. Even-order Distortion
References
[1] Cotter W. Sayre, Complete Wireless Design. McGraw-Hill, 2001.
[2] Behzad Razavi, RF Microelectronics, Prentice Hall Communication Engineering,
1998.
[3] B. Razavi, Design Consideration for Direct Conversion Receiver, IEEE Trans.
Circuits and Systems-II, Analog and Digital Signal Processing, vol44,no.6,pp428-
435, June 1997.
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Manarat International University Studies, 2 (1): 152-157, December 2011
[4] Qizeng Gu, RF System Design of Transceiver for Wireless Communications, Springer
Science, 2005.
[5] Ken Kundert, Accurate and Rapid Measurement of IP2 and IP3,Designer’s guide
consulting Inc, 2002
[6] A. A. Abidi, Direct Conversion Radio Transceiver for Digital Communications, IEEE
Journal of Solid State Circuits, Vol.30,pp.1399-1410,December 1995.
[7] A. Bensky, Short-range Wireless Communication: Fundamentals of RF System
Design and Application, 2nd Edition, Amsterdam, -Newnes-Elsevier 2004
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