Patent ID: 8280337

Claim:
An apparatus for communicating information, comprising: a filtering module in communication with a zero intermediate frequency (ZIF) communication circuit, wherein the filtering module comprises: a first mixer circuit in communication with an output of the ZIF communication circuit, wherein the first mixer circuit is configured to down-convert a transmission signal at a first frequency from the ZIF communication circuit to a second frequency to generate a down-converted transmission signal; a first filtering circuit in communication with an output of the first mixer circuit, wherein the first filtering circuit is configured to filter the down-converted transmission signal to generate a filtered down-converted transmission signal; a second mixer circuit in communication with an output of the first filtering circuit, wherein the second mixer circuit is configured to up-convert the filtered down-converted transmission signal to a third frequency to generate a filtered transmission signal; a third mixer circuit, wherein the third mixer circuit is configured to receive a received signal at a fourth frequency, and wherein the third mixer circuit is configured to down-convert the received signal to a fifth frequency to generate a down-converted received signal; a second filtering circuit in communication with an output of the third mixer circuit, wherein the second filtering circuit is configured to filter the down-converted received signal to generate a filtered down-converted received signal; a fourth mixer circuit in communication with the second filtering circuit, wherein the fourth mixer circuit is configured to up-convert the filtered down-converted received signal to a sixth frequency to generate a filtered received signal, and wherein the ZIF communication circuit is in communication with an output of the fourth mixer circuit; and at least one oscillator circuit in communication with the first, second, third and fourth mixer circuits, wherein the at least one oscillator circuit is configured to control mixing frequencies of the first, second, third and fourth mixer circuits, wherein the first frequency and the third frequency are substantially identical, and wherein the fourth frequency and the sixth frequency are substantially identical.