A narrowband radio frequency receiver circuit for emerging hand-held personal communications systems is the subject of this thesis. A 1.9 GHz low-noise preamplifier (LNA) and doubly-balanced mixer that have been fabricated in a mixture silicon BiCMOS process are described. A production silicon technology offers the advantages of low fabrication cost as well as the potential for a high level of circuit integration for this application. Monolithic transformers fabricated using coupled microstrip lines have been implemented to lower the operating voltage and the current consumed by both the receiver preamplifier and the mixer. Circuit models for inductors and transformers fabricated in a silicon VLSI technology have been developed and their accuracy experimentally verified as a part of this work.

Circuits incorporating monolithic transformers have been developed which take advantage of the benefits offered by narrowband circuits within a silicon technology. In addition to allowing a lower operating voltage, the transformer in the preamplifier is used as a low-loss feedback element. This has been exploited to achieve a low noise figure in the preamplifier, while maintaining the benefit of negative feedback to linearize the stage. The results of this study show that magnetic coupling in the feedback network offers a number of advantages over conventional, uncoupled preamplifier designs. Also, a monolithic transformer balun is used to efficiently couple the single-ended input signal from the LNA to a low power doubly-balanced mixer, and thereby realize a low level of harmonic distortion and a good noise figure.