Patent ID: 8165538

Claim:
A system for generating local oscillator (LO) signals for a harmonic rejection mixer, the system comprising: a local oscillator configured to provide a reference frequency signal; a divide-by-N frequency divider configured to divide the reference frequency signal by a value N and provide an output signal; a divide-by-three frequency divider configured to receive the output signal of the divide-by-N frequency divider and divide the output signal into three phase-offset signals, the three phase-offset signals include a first signal B 0° offset by 0 degrees, a second signal B 60° offset by 60 degrees, and a third signal B 120° offset by 120 degrees; and a harmonic rejection mixer configured to receive the three phase-offset signals and eliminate third frequency harmonics, when implemented in a transmitter having at least two input signals I(t) and Q(t) and an output signal V 0 (t), the harmonic rejection mixer generating the output signal V 0 (t) according to the following equation: V 0 ( t )=[(√3 B 0° ( t )+√3 B 60° ( t )) I ( t )]+[(− B 0° ( t )+ B 60° ( t)+ 2 B 120° ( t )) Q ( t)].