4-Channel/Antenna Multi-Band RF Transmitter

Operating from 525 MHz to 6 GHz

Stefan Fikar*#1, Richard Bogenberger#2, Arpad L. Scholtz*3
#
BMW Group Research and Technology
Hanauerstraße 46, 80992 Munich Germany
1
[Link]@[Link]
2
[Link]@[Link]
*
Vienna University of Technology
Gußhausstraße 25/E389, A-1040 Wien
3
[Link]@[Link]

Abstract— A multi-band transmitter front-end featuring four This leads to increased printed circuit board (PCB) area,
channels in the range from 525 MHz to 6 GHz is presented. This additional (standby-) current drain, consequently larger
design is perfectly suited for convenient integration into software batteries, larger weight of the device, higher bill of material
defined radio (SDR) applications [1]. The transmitter features a (BOM), device costs and added device volume. In summary:
shared selectable low phase-noise local oscillator (LO) for carrier
frequency generation and 4 direct conversion I/Q-modulators
A less attractive and more expensive device; An outcome that
that meet the specifications for spread spectrum (e.g. is definitely not desired.
CDMA2000, UMTS) and OFDM(A) (e.g. WiMAX) systems. The For the future of baseband technologies the actually
four I/Q channel inputs are designed to be controlled by A/D- preferred answer to this challenge seems to be SDR. Different
converters. So the channels can be used for different sub- companies are continuously developing new products. Like
channels, operated as MIMO/diversity transmitter, used for NEC Electronics fully integrated baseband filter with a
digital beam-forming or for a combination of these possibilities. tuneable bandwidth ranging for 400 kHz to 30 MHz [3], or –
The loosely packed prototype circuit has been designed on a six- for the digital domain – Infineon’s new software configurable
layer PCB that measures less than 40 times 80 mm without multi-standard baseband solution for cellular, connectivity and
baseband connectors but including powerful voltage regulators
and is thus smaller than an actual mobile handset. For phase or
satellite system, that is based on a multi-DSP solution [4].
error vector magnitude (EVM) critical systems (especially) in the Thinking of Moore’s law [5] the computing power for SDR
upper bands, the four transmit paths have been designed for will be available in the future – not mentioning whether the
precisely matched delays and transmit powers. near or remote future is meant. A summary of the vision and
the grade of current feasibility, along with several circuit
I. INTRODUCTION examples, is presented in [6] and [7].
Permanent network connections of different occurrence are The design of the analog part of a transmitter is influenced
becoming ubiquitous for mobile devices and costumer by the laws of physics to a larger extend. A resonant circuit
electronics. will not feature a higher ability of frequency adaptation just by
The typical frequencies of operation and communication using a more advanced production process. Building a device
for products in the mass market is going to range from the 700 that is capable to transmit different signals with two antennas
MHz band, previously auctioned in the US, up to the 5.9 GHz instead of one still requires embedding a second signal chain,
band used for Car2Car-Communication with the IEEE whereas baseband for both signals could be covered by a
802.11p standard [2], in the near future. single, but faster processing unit. Details for that condition
A major challenge for the development and maintenance and design suggestions for mobile SDR hardware can be
for these devices is the permanently growing plurality of found in [8].
standards and frequency allocations for network services. Based on the preceding thoughts and to achieve the desired
Designing a networked device, which is enabled to and required bandwidth our transmitter design completely
communicate with all services of interest, even just for a abstains from narrow-band techniques for frequency
certain regional area, is a challenge. Designing a comparable generation, signal distribution, amplification and modulation.
device for worldwide interoperability and thus for a lot of To avoid the requirement of IF or RF filters, highly linear
different licensed frequency bands is nearly impossible. direct conversion (homodyne) modulators are used. A very
The reason is the vast amount of different baseband chips low phase noise voltage controlled oscillator (VCO)
and radio frequency (RF) frontends needed to comply with the controlled by an integer-N phase locked loop (PLL) generates
huge amount of different standards around the world. Only a the LO-frequency. The reference frequency for the PLL is
portion of the installed electronics is useful in any regional made available by a precise fractional-N PLL voltage
area of the world, but all of the electronics have to be installed, controlled crystal oscillator (VCXO) synthesizer that is
if worldwide applicability is desired. digitally tuneable from 8 to 230 MHz.
 II. DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS III. CONCEPT OF THE PROPOSED TRANSMITTER
A. Designated Frequency Bands A. LO Frequency Generation
Our design goal has been to develop a transmitter for a To reach our design goals, a direct-up-conversion
communication device. The device shall fulfil the requirement architecture was chosen. The architecture for the LO
to be able to operate within any communication network frequency generation is depicted in Fig. 1. The LO frequency
available to mobile users. can be precisely adjusted by two settings. The first option is to
An additional requirement is that the device should be set the reference frequency by a fractional-N reference PLL-
operable in any country on each continent. The design goal of VCXO synthesizer. The second option is to set the divider of
worldwide applicability implies that the transmitter has to be the main PLL-VCO synthesizer that is in charge of the final
able to work and a large variety of frequency bands. The LO frequency generation. By these two settings a very fine
lowest target frequency is 700 MHz, an old analog television carrier frequency setting is possible.
band that is now auctioned off for wireless network use (e.g.
in the US) or unused at all since the advent of digital TV
technologies and waiting for a new purpose in many countries
worldwide.
The pleasant propagation characteristics of this quite low
frequency makes it interesting for suburban and rural high

SDA/SCL
data rate networks, like the upcoming 4th generation networks

SPI/I2C
(e.g. IEEE 802.16e mobile WiMAX or the UMTS successor
LTE).
The upper operational frequency limit has been set to 6 Fig. 1 Block diagram of the frequency generation system. The device marked
GHz. This frequency was chosen as the IEEE 802.11p (pre-) A is a quartz crystal oscillator resonating between 8 and 32 MHz. Device (B)
standard used for Car2Car-Communication and is the fractional-N PLL-VCXO synthesizer, that uses device (A) as its
reference and is able to generate frequencies between the crystal’s frequency
Car2Infrastructure-Communication is situated around 5.9 GHz. and 230 MHz. Device (C) accepts 10 – 200 MHz as reference, so the output
Hence 5.9 GHz is the highest frequency that mass market of device (B) is limited to that values. Device (C) is the LO frequency
communication devices are transmitting today. All the other generator. It is build from a digitally controllable integer-N PLL with
systems of interest are residing between these limiting bands integrated VCO synthesizer. Device (C) is able to generate frequencies from
625 MHz to 5 GHz in several bands. This part is replaceable by two different
(e.g. UMTS around 2 GHz). synthesizers with the same pin-out to cover the whole frequency range
between these two values. The next version of the transmitter prototype is
B. Number of Transmit Channels going to feature switchable LO generators to cover the complete frequency
In order to expand the capabilities of the transceiver further, range. The arrows on the bottom of this figure represent the digital busses
four transmit channels have been specified, all of which are used to control the frequency system.
able to be modulated individually. B. LO amplification and distribution network
Since all new communication standards employ novel
smart antenna technologies, like phased arrays or multiple The LO frequency is generated as a differential signal by
input – multiple output (MIMO) technologies (WiMAX, LTE, the PLL-VCO synthesizer. The output power of the
UMB, IEEE802.11n,…), this flexibility is demanded by future synthesizer has a typical level of 0 dBm. As each of the four
usage scenarios. Additionally to phased arrays and MIMO modulators needs a drive level of -6 to +7 dBm, the need for
systems, the individual channels can also be used to set up amplification arises.
multi-channel transmitters with low Crest-Factor (peak to Additionally to the power division (-6 dBm for 4 sinks) the
average power ratio (PAPR)), use transmit diversity divider network itself also inserts attenuation. The challenge
technologies or combine any of these techniques. for the distribution of the LO frequency signal is the wide
For instance a mobile WiMAX Wave 2 (MIMO) range of frequencies. Nearly all power divider technologies
transmitter combined with a two antenna beamforming for are narrow banded. A lot of different power dividing strategies
each of the two channels is feasible; in a single channel have been evaluated for that reason. For instance the popular
system like GSM all channels could be used for range Wilkinson divider has a relative bandwidth of approximately
extension. Such a four antenna beamforming system offers an 20 percent, not compliant to our specifications. Transformer
array gain of 6 dB and thus a range extension by a factor of based dividers (e.g. [9]) offer comparatively low insertion loss
two, assuming free space propagation. and a nearly satisfactory bandwidth, but have different
disadvantages that hinder implementation. Their technical
C. Modulation Bandwidth downside is non-satisfactory matching of the output signal’s
Channel bandwidths used today and in the near future are phase and amplitude. But there is also a severe economic
between 200 kHz (as GSM) and 20 MHz (maximum for LTE drawback. The up to date technically best qualified part [9] is
and WiMAX). So 20 MHz are set as the infimum for the not feasible for mass production as it is rather large
modulation bandwidth specs. To allow for multi-channel (6.35x7.87x5.08 mm) and way to expensive for a consumer
transmissions as described in section B. a 100 MHz product (about 20$ each, three would be needed).
modulation bandwidth was set as goal.
 As none of the evaluated low loss variants meets the major For a homodyne system without intermediate or radio
design goals, another suboptimum but specification compliant frequency filtering it is mandatory to keep the error vector
variant – the resistive divider – has been chosen. This resistive magnitude (EVM) and the spurious emissions as low as
divider has one input port and four output ports. The ports are possible. To get a picture of the expectable signal perturbance,
connected in star topology with five 30 Ohm resistors, so each the signal levels in between the signal chain’s building blocks
port is matched to 50 Ohms, the characteristic impedance of have to be reviewed. The level plan is depicted in Table I.
the microstrips. TABLE I
Unfortunately a resistive divider for four channels inserts LEVEL PLAN OF THE TRANSMITTER, TYPICAL VALUES
additional 12 dB of attenuation (1/4th of the power (-6 dB) for
each channel and 6 dB of losses). Hence the differential LO Component Gain Output Output 1 dB
Level IP3 GCP
signal has to be amplified by at least 6 dB to meet the driving [dB] [dBm] [dBm] [dBm]
requirement of the modulators. PLL-VCO - 0 - -
For this amplification a single ended broadband amplifier Track and -0.2 -0.2 - -
with an extensively frequency independent gain of 12 dB has Capacitor
been used for each of the two lines carrying the differential Amplifier 12 11.8 35 20
signal. Resistive Divider -12.5 -0.7 - -
The lengths and attenuations of all paths have to be connecting Track
precisely the same to avoid phase and amplitude imbalance. Track to Modulator -0.3 -1 - -
For the connection of all modulators crossings of the LO+ and Incoming Power at the LO Port of the Modulators: -1dBm
the LO- signals are not avoidable. A well performing method Modulator ~ 2* 0 – 2* 13 – 30* ~ 10
would be to use [10]. But to avoid a different count of RF *frequency (6 @
dependent values 5 GHz+)
signal crossings of the differential LO signals, the synthesizer
and the modulators are situated on different sides of the
printed circuit board (PCB), separated by two ground planes. The listing of the power level values shows that all levels
This allows using exactly one similar top-layer to bottom- are well within the linear range of the building blocks, as the
layer transition in each LO+ and LO- signal path and thus signal level is very well below the third order intercept point
amplitude matched and equally phased signals. The LO (IP3) and the 1 dB gain compression point (1 dB GCP).
distribution and amplification is shown in figure 2. C. Array of Modulators
The Array of modulators is fed by LO signals of equal
phase and amplitude for any frequency setting, because the
D line length and attenuation has been matched. This is
important especially for the use of the four channels as a four
antenna beamforming array, due to the fact that the pointing
direction is controlled by phase differences there. Different
D line length and attenuation could be compensated in the digital
signal domain, but this would require additional processing
power for the correcting vector multiplication (1). Where M is
the desired signal point from the constellation diagram, A is
the attenuation of the line, λ is the actual wave length and Δl
D is the line length deviation.

− j 2πΔl
A 1 λ
M corrected =M e (1)
B C A
D
Since the line lengths are equal this correction can be
omitted and the carrier can be directly modulated by the
Fig. 2 The local oscillator frequency distribution network is shown. The LO
tracks are highlighted by higher color saturation. Tracks on the PCB’s top are
desired I/Q symbols. The used modulators offer an output
shown in red/dark grey, tracks on the bottom are plotted green/medium grey. frequency range of 400 MHz to 6 GHz. The modulation
Non highlighted tracks from the actual PCB’s layout are depicted in pallid bandwidth within 0.1 dB of gain variation is 100 MHz.
colours. The LO generator is marked with (A), two tracks with the LO+ and The modulators offer an output power of 0 to 2 dBm,
the LO- signals are leading towards the two single ended 12 dB gain
amplifiers, which are marked as (B). The next steps in the signal chain are the
depending on the frequency setting, resulting in an overall
resistive power dividers (C), consisting of five 30 Ohms resistors each. They transmitter output power of 6 to 8 dBm.
split the incoming wave in four phase and amplitude matched signals. To
avoid signal crossings on the same board side (as possible with [10]), the
modulators (D) are placed on the bottom of the board to get exactly one via
transition (black dots) in each signals track.
 A B C D E F

G H I J K L

Fig. 3 Three dimensional plot of the developed transmitter board. The complete board measures 40 times 140 mm; the transmitter without the prototype
connectors is 40 times 80 mm, including the digital pinout and low voltage converters. The digital connections for the reference oscillator are marked with (A).
(B) is a low noise switching power regulator capable of providing 1.5 amperes at a voltage of 3.3 volts. The reference crystal (C) is placed very closely to the
reference PLL-VCXO (D) to avoid line inductance and parasitic capacitance. The 5 and 12 volt connectors are marked with (E). (F) shows the power dividers,
previously described in section III. B. and Fig. 2. The SPI/I²C control connection of the main PLL VCO (H) is marked as (G). The LO+ and LO- lines are
individually boosted by the broadband amplifiers (I). (J) shows the top side cooling pads of the modulators. The modulators themselves are placed on the
bottom of the PCB to allow matched LO signals to all modulators (details in section III. B.). The array of the four single ended an AC-coupled antenna outputs
are labelled (K). The last item (L) shows the array of baseband I/Q inputs. I/Q signals are fed differentially, so 4 connectors per channel are required.
[2] IEEE 802.11p standard document. [Online]. Available:
D. Digital Control Interface [Link]
[3] NEC Electronics. NEC Electronics Successfully Develop
The reference oscillator is controlled by an SDA/SCL Reconfigurable Analog Baseband LSI for Software Defined Radio.
interface. Via this interface the divider ratios of the PLL can Also presented at the International Solid-State Circuit Conference
be set, outputs can be switched on and off and the power (ISSCC), February 2008. [Online]. Available:
saving mode is controllable. The main oscillator is controlled [Link]
[4] X-GOLD™ SDR 20 - A programmable Baseband Processor for Multi-
by an SPI/I²C interface. VCO output amplitude, charge pump Standard Cell Phones. Infineon AG. [Online]. Available:
current, counters and divides can be controlled by that [Link]
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Proceedings of the IEEE, Vol. 86, Issue 1, Jan. 1998, pp. 82 – 85
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The concept and development of a very flexible four- [7] C. Svennson and S. Andersson, Software Defined Radio: Vision,
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is now being manufactured and measurements will be 2006.
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The device operates in frequencies between 625 MHz and 6 Novel Hardware Design Paradigm for Mobile ‘Software Defined
Radio’ Terminals, IEEE Seventh International Symposium on Spread
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