Highly integrated television tuner on a single microcircuit

1. A television receiver comprising:

a receiver input coupled to an RF signal source;

a first reference signal having a first operating frequency;

a first mixer having a first input coupled to said receiver input and a second input coupled to said first reference signal;

a bond-wire parallel Inductive Capacitive (LC) filter coupled to an output of said first mixer; the bond-wire parallel LC filter passing more than one channel and performing partial image rejection as well as limiting overall signal power levels to be processed by subsequent circuitry, wherein the more than one channel passed by the bond-wire parallel LC filter is attenuated;

a first and a second phase locked loop providing reference inputs for a third phase locked loop;

a second reference signal produced by said third phase locked loop having a second operating frequency; and

an image rejection mixer having a first input coupled to an output of said bond-wire parallel LC filter and a second input coupled to said third phase locked loop to receive said second reference signal.

2. The television receiver of claim 1 wherein said first mixer, said bond-wire parallel LC filter, and said image rejection mixer comprise a differential mixer chain.

3. The television receiver of claim 1 wherein said first mixer and said image rejection mixer are constructed on a same integrated circuit substrate.

4. The television receiver of claim 1 wherein said bond-wire parallel LC filter is external to an integrated circuit on which said first mixer is located.

5. The television receiver of claim 1 wherein said first bandpass filter is external to an integrated circuit on which said first mixer is located.

6. A television receiver comprising:

a receiver input for receiving an RF signal;

an input filter coupled to said receiver input and operating to remove all frequency components in said RF signal above an input cutoff frequency to produce a filtered RF signal;

a first reference signal having a first operating frequency;

a first mixer having a first input coupled to an output of said input filter and a second input coupled to said first reference signal;

a digital interface providing control with respect to said first mixer; wherein said digital interface comprises an inter-integrated circuit interface;

a second reference signal having a second operating frequency; and

a second mixer having a first input coupled to an output of said first mixer and a second input coupled to said second reference signal; and

a filter between said first and second mixers;

wherein said second mixer is an image rejection mixer, wherein said first mixer and said second mixer are physically located in the same integrated circuit substrate.

7. The television receiver of claim 6 wherein said first mixer, said filter and said second mixer comprise a differential mixer chain.

8. The television receiver of claim 6 wherein said first and second mixers are constructed on a same integrated circuit substrate.

9. The television receiver of claim 6 wherein said filter comprises:

a bond-wire parallel Inductive Capacitive (LC) filter.

10. A method of processing a received RF signal, the method comprising the steps of:

attenuating frequency components of said RF signal above a cut-off frequency to create a filtered RF signal;

mixing the RF signal with a first reference signal having a first operating frequency to thereby produce a first IF signal;

controlling a frequency of said first operating frequency for said mixing the filtered RF signal using a digital interface;

filtering the first IF signal in a bandpass filter to produce an output passband signal having a plurality of channels; and

mixing the output passband signal with a second reference signal having a second operating frequency to thereby produce a second IF signal, wherein said mixing the filtered RF signal and said mixing the output passband signal are performed in a single integrated circuit.