The present technology relates to a signal processing apparatus and method capable of increasing a harmonic rejection ratio while suppressing an increase in power consumption.

In one aspect of the present technology, two local signals having a 1/3 duty ratio and phases mutually shifted by a 1/2 period are mixed with each signal of a differential signal, and a difference between results of the mixing of the two local signals is calculated. The present technology can be applied to, for example, a signal processing apparatus, a transmission apparatus, a reception apparatus, a communication apparatus, an electronic apparatus having a transmission function, a reception function, or a communication function, or a computer that controls those apparatuses.

A harmonic translational filter includes a first path, a second path and a signal combiner. The first path has a first translational filter that is driven by a plurality of first oscillation signals, and is arranged to generate a first output signal according to an input signal. The second path has a second translation filter that is driven by a plurality of second oscillation signals that are different from the first oscillation signals in phase. The second path is coupled to the first path and arranged to generate a second output signal according to the input signal. The signal combiner is coupled to the first path and the second path, and arranged to combine the first output signal and the second output signal to generate a filtered signal.

Radio frequency (RF) mixer circuits having a complementary frequency multiplier module that requires no balun to multiply a lower frequency base oscillator signal to a higher frequency local oscillator (LO) signal, and which has a significantly reduced IC area compared to balun-based frequency multipliers. In one embodiment, the complementary frequency multiplier module includes a complementary pair of FETs controlled by an applied base oscillator signal. The complementary FETs are coupled to a common-gate FET amplifier and alternate becoming conductive in response to the base oscillator signal. The alternating switching of the complementary FETs in response to the opposing phases of the base oscillator signal cause the common-gate FET amplifier to output a higher frequency local oscillator (LO) signal. The LO signal is coupled to the LO input of a mixer or mixer core of a type suitable for use in conjunction with a frequency multiplier.

A down-conversion mixer includes a trans conductance unit, a resonant unit and a mixing unit. The transconductance unit converts a differential input voltage signal pair into a differential input current signal pair. The resonant unit provides a negative resistance and a differential auxiliary current signal pair. The mixing unit mixes a combination of the differential input current signal pair and the differential auxiliary current signal pair with a differential oscillatory voltage signal pair to generate a differential mixed voltage signal pair.

An equalizer circuit includes an phase-to-phase connectors including an phase-to-phase capacitor and four phase-to-phase switches, four output buffers, and control signal generation circuitry. One terminal of each phase-to-phase switches is connected to one of four connection paths on which four conversion signals being different in phase by 90 are input. The other one terminal of each phase-to-phase switches is connected to the phase-to-phase capacitor. Each output buffer is connected to one of the four connection paths and outputs an output signal. The control signal generation circuitry outputs control signals to control turning-on/off of the respective four phase-to-phase switches. A closing of the first, second, third, and fourth phase-to-phase switches are started from any one of phase-to-phase switches in one of a first ascending circulation and a first descending circulation based on the 4-phase control signals.

A system and method of an electronic apparatus for use in a communication system includes a switching module arranged to combine a plurality of input signals received by a plurality of input ports in connection with the switching module to define a combined input signal having a plurality of frequency components; and a loading module arranged to receive the combined input signal from the switching module and to individually separate each of the plurality of frequency components of the combined input signal by processing the combined input signal with a plurality of resonating networks, each arranged to resonate at a resonance frequency associated with each of the plurality of frequency components of the combined input signals.

A wide tuning range receiver is provided that includes first and second mixers, and first and second local oscillators. The first mixer can mix an input signal with a signal from the first local oscillator and output a signal having a first intermediate frequency, the second mixer can mix the signal having the first intermediate frequency with a signal from the second local oscillator and output a signal having a second intermediate frequency, and, for each input signal frequency, a relationship between the first and second local oscillators can be fixed.

Apparatus includes: a mixer configured to mix local a oscillator signal with a baseband signal and output a radio frequency (RF) signal; a first load coupled to the mixer and tuned to an operating frequency; and a second load coupled to the mixer and tuned to a predetermined multiple of the operating frequency.

A system and method of an electronic apparatus for use in a communication system includes a switching module arranged to combine a plurality of input signals received by a plurality of input ports in connection with the switching module to define a combined input signal having a plurality of frequency components; and a loading module arranged to receive the combined input signal from the switching module and to individually separate each of the plurality of frequency components of the combined input signal by processing the combined input signal with a plurality of resonating networks, each arranged to resonate at a resonance frequency associated with each of the plurality of frequency components of the combined input signals.

Some of the embodiments of the present disclosure provide a receiver comprising a class AB common-gate transformer-based low noise transconductance amplifier (LNT) configured to receive an electromagnetic signal, a passive resonant mixer electrically connected to (i) an output port of the class AB common-gate transformer-based LNT and (ii) a local oscillator. The passive resonant mixer can be configured to reject at least one harmonic of the local oscillator. The receiver also comprises a base-band module electrically connected to an output port of the passive resonant mixer.