High dynamic range 60 MHz powerline front-end IC

Presented for the first time, is a novel broadband powerline front-end realised in 0.25 μm SiGe BiCMOS with superior performance. The frequency range of the transmitter (TX) and the direct conversion receiver (RX) exceeds 60 MHz with a very wide dynamic range up to 99.5 dB for the lowest channel bandwidth. The integrated IF filter is tunable from I up to 8 MHz. The measured input-referred noise of the TX with low third intermodulation distortion (IMD3) is -140 and 144.5 dBm/Hz for the RX.