Communication circuits
Dept. of Electrical & Electronic Engineering
University of Zanjan
M. Yargholi
Fall 2021
November 11, 2023 1
Introduction 1
Cell phone equipment
WCDMA
GPS/Galileo
WLAN
DVB-H
UWB
3G, 4G, 5G (LTE, UMTS, MIMO, ….)
Low Power (Laptop)
Very Low Power(cell phones)
Ultra Low Power(RFID)
November 11, 2023 2
Introduction 1
RF circuits used in:
Cellular : GSM/WCDMA/CDMA 2000/ TD-SCDMA
Wireless Broad Band: WLAN(802.11)/ WiMax(802.16)
Short Range Connectivity: ZigBee(802.15.4)/UWB
Positioning: GPS/Galileo
Broadcast: FM/DVB-T/DVB-H/DMB-T
……….
November 11, 2023 3
Introduction to RF IC Design
Radio Frequency (RF)?
Frequency
30kHz 300GHz 3*1016 Hz
Visible X
VLF RF IR UV
Light
10km 1mm 10nm
Wavelength
Radio Frequency (RF) ranges from 30KHz to
300GHz
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What is RF?
X-ray
Frequency
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IEEE Frequency Bands
Band Frequency Range
Designation
VLF 3-30KHz
LF 30-300KHz
MF 300-3000KHz
HF 3-30MHz
VHF 30-300MHz
UHF 300-3000MHz (3GHz)
SHF 3-30GHz
EHF 30-300GHz
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Frequency Bands (µW)
Band Nominal Frequency Range
Designation (old , widely used)
VHF 30-300MHz
UHF 0.3-3GHz
L 1-2GHz
S 2-4GHz
C 4-8GHz
X 8-12.4GHz
Ku 12.4-18GHz
K 18- 26.5GHZ
Ka 26.5-40GHz
EHF 30-300GHz
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Wireless Systems
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Wireless and LAN Evolution
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Application of RF ICs
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Digital Wireless System
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Example: Nokia 8850
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Example: Nokia 8850
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Example: Nokia 8850
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Technology
The technologies constitute the major section of
the RF market:
GaAs
Silicon Bipolar
BiCMOS
SiGe
CMOS
CMOS technology must resolve a number of practical issues:
Substrate coupling of signals that differ in amplitude by 100dB,
parameter variation with temperature and process, and devices
modeling for RF operation.
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Typical Multi-Technology RF Transceiver
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Receiver Architectures
Heterodyne
Single-IF,
Dual-IF
Low-IF
Homodyne
Zero-IF, Direct Conversion
Sub sampling
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Double Conversion Super Heterodyne
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Double Conversion Super Heterodyne
Image Freq
F RF 910 MHZ
F LO 955 MHZ F 910 2 F IF 1GHZ
F IF 45 MHZ
Image Rejection filter BPF1 =70dB Loss on 1GHz
45 M 0 . 45 M 45 . 45 MHZ
F IMAGE 2 45 2 * 0 . 45 45 . 9 MHZ f Im age 2 910 MHz 0 . 9 MHz
Trade off between Image rejection filter and channel
selection filter
Advantage and disadvantage of Heterodyne
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Image Rejection Filter (IRF)
Image can be suppressed by an “image-reject” filter,
placed before the mixer
The IR filter is designed to have small loss in the
desired band and large attenuation in the image band,
conditions that require a large 2IF
How large can 2IF be?
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Image Rejection & Channel selection filter
Trade off between Image Rejection Filter & Channel selection filter
A high IF leads to substantial rejection of the image
A low IF allows great suppression of nearby interferers
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LOW IF architecture
F RF 1 . 5 GHZ
F IF 4 MHZ
1 . 5 GHZ
Q 400
Q of filters 4M
Low IF is specially for GPS and TDA7000
Advantage and disadvantage
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ZERO-IF Architecture
Direct Conversion or Homodyne
I-Q impairment in zero-IF
G 30 dB G 0 . 7 dB
COS T
90
2 ~ 4
COS ( T )
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Direct-Conversion (Zero-IF) Receiver
LNA VGA ADC
Duplexer Channel-Selection filter
SYN
fRF = fLO => fIF = 0
IF = 0 => Simple Low-Pass Channel-Selection Filter
Image is signal itself => NO IR Filter! and the LNA need not drive 50
load!
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Direct-Conversion Receiver - LO Self-Mixing
LNA VGA ADC
Duplexer
SYN
Leakage between LO and Inputs of Mixer, LNA, and Antenna Mix
with Itself => DC Offset => Interference and Distortion
DC Offset is Time-Variant (i.e. leakage to antenna radiated out and
reflected back from a moving object)
November 11, 2023 25
I/Q Mismatch in Homodyne Receivers
For PM/FM a homodyne
receiver must incorporate I/Q
mixing
I/Q require shifting either the
RF signal or the LO output by 90
°
Usually, the LO is shifted (much
easier)!
•The errors in the 90° phase shift
and mismatches between the
amplitudes of the I/Q signals
corrupt the down-converted signal
constellation,
Raising the BER!
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Phase Noise Definition
•Ideal Oscillator
•Practical Oscillator
Where A(t) and (t) are caused by noise
-In general, A(t) can be removed by voltage limiters
Phase noise effect
in Down-conversion
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LO Phase Noise
A) Phase noise may pass through the mixer and degrade
sensitivity in different ways
1) Noise @IF leaks directly into the mixer IF port
2) Noise @RF leaks directly into the mixer RF port
3) Noise @ the distance of IF from the RF frequency
mixes with RF and appears into the mixer IF port
4) Noise @ the distance of IF from the LO frequency
mixes with LO and appears in the mixer IF port
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LO Phase Noise
B) LO mixes both with wanted signal and interfering
signal LO spectrum shifts to IF
Selectivity sets most difficult requirement for the VCO
phase noise
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LO Phase Noise
Pf0 - wanted signal
Pinterferer @ f - interferer/blocking signal located
@f offset from f0
BW - channel bandwidth
SNRmin - minimum SNR required @demodulator
3dB - an extra margin
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Lo Phase Noise:Ex. GSM
wanted signal = -99dBm
interferer = -43dB @600kHz offset
channel bandwidth = 200kHz
SNRmin = 10dB
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Typical IF frequencies (filter design)
455KHZ: AM radio
10.7MHZ: FM radio
21.7MHZ: Spectrum Analyzer (Measurement Devices)
[Link] : (33.4MHZ,38.9MHZ) (Tv System)
45MHZ: DAMPS
70MHZ
140MHZ satellite filters
280MHZ
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IF selection (Nyquist rate & filter frequency)
BW
F IF
2
FM Radio 88 MHZ ~ 108 MHZ
20 M
BW 20 MHZ IF IF 10 . 7 MHZ
2
MobileGSM 890 MHZ ~ 915 MHZ
25 M
BW 25 MHZ IF IF 45 MHZ
2
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Quadrature Signal Generation Methods
RC/CR
+/-
Divider
LLL
Quadrature OSC (with feedback loop)
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RC/CR +/-
The advantage is its simplicity
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+/-
Soft Limiting equalizes the amplitudes without any
clipping
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divider
A master-slave flipflop which divides a signal at 2ω1
by a factor 2, generates Quadrature periodic signals
with frequency ω1
Duty cycle is 50% otherwise phase error will happen
If the duty cycle of the input is not 50-50, the remedy
is:
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(Complexities )Simple FM Radio
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(Complexities )Philips GSM phone
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IS-19 cellular telephone RF section block
diagram
A 45 MHz offset frequency oscillator generates the
required receiver and transmitter local oscillator
frequency.
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IS-55 block diagram
A narrowband IF filter is required for digital operation, as
well as an ADC in the baseband.
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PHS Architecture
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GSM Architecture
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DECT Transceiver Architecture
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Wireless Standards
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GSM
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Transceiver Examples
Agilent Spectrum Analyzer (Receiver)
FM Broadcast receivers
Digital cell phone receivers
Philips’ GSM Transceiver
Radar
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Wide tune Range VCO
The characteristic curve of a varactor's capacitor
looks:
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Wide tune Range VCO
CV is very nonlinear
Having the required voltage range on the IC is not
easy. (no -10V on the IC)
1 1
f
2 LC 2 L C f
Cv
if C f
0 10 % VCO 20 % C v
if C f
Cv 10 % VCO 40 % C v
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Wide tune Range VCO
For wide ranges with no phase noise Cf is varied instead
of Cv
In the field of instrumentation, VCO‘s with high
frequency range is required (Agilent Spectrum Analyzer)
In these applications the whole band is upconverted to a high
frequency and then multiplied by the next mixer
Mixing is done in several steps
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FM Broadcast Receiver
RF frequency from 88 to 108 MHz, each channel
spaced 200 kHz apart, with 150 kHz bandwidth
Can’t filter out adjacent channels at RF frequency,
since filter would have an extremely narrow
bandwidth of 150 kHz/100 MHz = 0.15%
IF frequency of 10.7 MHz
IF filter has bandwidth of 150 kHz/10.7 MHz = 1.4%,
which is more practical
November 11, 2023 52
FM Broadcast Receiver
LO signal implemented as VCO, which must tune over
the frequency range fLO = fRF - fIF = 77.3 MHz to 97.3
MHz. This is a tuning ratio of 97.3/77.3 = 1.3, which
can be implemented as a Colpitts oscillator with a
varactor diode as a variable capacitor.
Image frequency from 66.6 to 86.6 MHz, which is
outside the FM band since the IF frequency is greater
than (108-88)/2=10 MHz.
November 11, 2023 53
Digital Cell phone Receiver
IS-94 PCS phone transmits over the range 824–849
MHz, receives over 869–894 MHz
Each of transmit and receive bands are divided into
30 kHz channels
System uses QPSK with a channel rate of 48.6 kbps
and TDMA to allow three users to share each channel
RF amplification divided among two stages to avoid
degrading noise figure and IP3
November 11, 2023 54
Digital Cell phone Receiver
First IF at 87 MHz, so image frequency is from 695 to
720 MHz, which can be cut out by RF bandpass filter
IF bandpass filter may be crystal, SAW resonator, or
ceramic resonator
Second IF frequency at 455 kHz
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Image-Rejection Example: DECT
-Desired Incoming Carrier: (freq. ~1.9GHz, Magn.
-73dBm).
-Local Osc. : (freq. ~1.7GHz)
-Imageband :(freq. ~1.5GHz, Magnitude -23dBm)
Irrequired= - 73dBm –(- 23dBm) + CNRrequired
Irrequired= 65dB
November 11, 2023 56
Philips’ GSM Transceiver
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Philips’ GSM Transceiver
The receive path includes 2 LNAs to allow the use of
two low-cost, lossy IR filters
The gain of each LNA can be digitally programmed,
covering a range of +21dB to –38dB
The amplified signal is translated to an IF of 400MHz
by mixing with the output of a 1.3GHz VCO
November 11, 2023 58
Philips’ GSM Transceiver
With the image lying at 1.7GHz, the LNAs and the
input stage of the mixer are designed so that their
cumulative gain drops by approximately 30dB at the
image frequency, thus relaxing the stopband
suppression required of the filters
The IF signal is filtered and downconverted to
baseband quadrature channels
Most of channel selection is performed in the
baseband by a fifth-order LPF relaxing the IS SAW
requirements
November 11, 2023 59
Philips’ GSM Transceiver
The transmit path incorporates two-step of
upconversion
First, the Gaussian-shaped baseband data (GFSK
modulation) is modulated on a 400MHz carrier and
filtered by an LC circuit
In the second step, the signal is applied to a single-
sideband mixer that is driven by a 1.3GHz oscillator
The mixer itself suppress the unwanted sideband by
20dB, relaxing the rejection required of the preceding
filter
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Philips’ GSM Transceiver
The 900MHz signal is then buffered and fed to the
power amplifier
Only 2 oscillators are used to perform all the
frequency translations both in the receive and
transmit paths, simplifying the prediction of various
spurs that may result from coupling and
intermodulation
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Philips’ GSM Transceiver
This strategy can be employed because GSM is TDMA
system, and the transmit and receive slots are offset
by three time slots, making possible to share the
oscillators
Both VCOs are external generating leakage to other
parts of the circuit
VLO2 is generated at 800MHz and the frequency is
divided by 2 on the IF chip to avoid self mixing and DC
offsets at baseband (like in homodyne
downconversion)
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RDAR Transceiver (L-Band)
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Architecture
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Array Antenna
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