Patent ID: 8624660

Claim:
A time-discrete harmonic rejection mixer circuit comprising: a parallel set of N unit cells that quantize a mixer transconductance into N+1 selectable levels, each level selectable by application of a corresponding digital control word to the set of unit cells; a mixer input port coupled to one end of the set of unit cells through a source termination conductance; and a mixer output port coupled to the other end of the set of unit cells through a load termination conductance; said source and load termination conductances having conductance values producing a non-uniform quantization of said mixer transconductance by the set of unit cells so that a subset of the quantization levels better match a set of nominal transconductance points corresponding to a desired sinusoidal Local Oscillator (LO) waveform than would be achieved with a uniform quantization of said mixer transconductance; and a digital sequencer configured to store or otherwise generate a sequence of digital control words corresponding to said subset of quantization levels, and further configured to apply said sequence of digital control words to the set of unit cells at a timing corresponding to a frequency of the sinusoidal LO waveform.