Patent ID: 8121241

Claim:
A method of processing a radio frequency (RF) signal, the method comprising: generating a periodic square wave local oscillator (LO) signal of a first phase, a periodic square wave LO signal of a second phase, and a chopping signal, wherein a phase difference between the first phase and the second phase is a predefined value; coding the periodic square wave LO signal of the first phase synchronously with the chopping signal to generate a first set of synchronized signals comprising a synchronized chopping encoded signal and a synchronized chopping decoder control signal; coding the periodic square wave LO signal of the second phase synchronously with the chopping signal to generate a second set of synchronized signals comprising a synchronized chopping encoded signal and a synchronized chopping decoder control signal; obtaining an in-phase intermediate frequency (IF) signal by processing the RF signal with the first set of synchronized signals in an in-phase path; and obtaining a quadrature-phase intermediate frequency (IF) signal by processing the RF signal with the second set of synchronized signals in a quadrature-phase path; and wherein each transition in the chopping signal produces the phase reversal of the LO signal of the first phase to produce the synchronized chopping encoded signal for the in-phase path at a different point in time than the phase reversal of the LO signal of the second phase to produce the synchronized chopping encoded signal for the quadrature-phase path.