Staffan Ek

A WiMedia/MBOA-Compliant CMOS RF Transceiver for UWB

A fully integrated WiMedia/MBOA-compliant RF transceiver for UWB data communication in the 3 to 5GHz band is presented. It is designed in a 0.13mum standard CMOS process with 1.5V single supply voltage. The NF is between 3.6 and 4.1dB over all 3 bands. On the TX side, the P1dB is 5dBm supporting an EVM of -28dB and up to -4dBm output power. A single-PLL LO generation is included

A 9-band WCDMA/EDGE transceiver supporting HSPA evolution

The future of cellular radio ICs lies in the integration of an ever-increasing number of bands and channel bandwidths. Figure 21.2.1 shows the block diagram of our transceiver, together with the associated discrete front-end components. The transceiver supports 4 EDGE bands and 9 WCDMA bands (I-VI and VIII-X), while the radio can be configured to simultaneously support the 4 EDGE bands and up to 5 WCDMA bands: 3 high bands (HB) and 2 low bands (LB). The RX is a SAW-less homodyne composed of a main RX and a diversity RX. To reduce package complexity with so many bands, we chose to minimize the number of ports by using single-ended RF interfaces for both RX and TX. This saves several package pins, but requires careful attention to grounding. The main RX has 8 LNA ports and the diversity RX has 5, with some LNAs supporting multiple bands. On the TX side, 2 ports are used for all EDGE bands and 4 for the WCDMA bands.

A receiver for LTE Rel-11 and beyond supporting non-contiguous carrier aggregation

Carrier aggregation (CA) is introduced in 3GPP LTE Rel-10 [1] to meet the demand for further increased bitrates. While LTE Rel-10 supports simultaneous reception of two carriers either in contiguous intra-band or in inter-band CA configuration, the upcoming LTE Rel-11 will add support for non-contiguous (NC) carriers within bands. Supporting NC CA in handsets is a demanding challenge for several reasons. Foremost, the total bandwidth spanned by the carriers may be several times the bandwidth of the individual carriers, possibly spanning an entire band with interfering signals between desired carriers. Furthermore, the distance between TX and RX carriers will vary and worse, may be much smaller than the fixed duplex distance for LTE Rel-8 and W-CDMA single carrier operation [2-5].

Complex IF Harmonic Rejection Mixer for Non-Contiguous Dual Carrier Reception in 65 nm CMOS

This paper presents a complex IF mixer for a double conversion receiver architecture to be used for non-contiguous dual carrier reception as specified in upcoming releases of 3GPP standards. The complex IF mixer contains four harmonic rejection (HR) mixers, each of which is implemented with 64 passive unit cell mixers, clocked by a ring-oscillator based phase-locked loop and driven by sequencers that represent thermometer-coded oversampled sinusoidal LO waveforms. Each HR mixer is followed by a buffer and a signal distribution network to enable separation of the two carriers as well as IQ-imbalance correction. The complex IF mixer supports reception of two carriers with up to 65 MHz separation using 12 samples per IF LO period and a clock frequency of 390 MHz. The IF mixer is implemented in 65 nm CMOS, has an area of 0.74 mm2, draws 26 mA, and has a harmonic conversion lower than -68 dBc per harmonic.

A 4.75–34.75 MHz digitally tunable active-RC LPF for >60dB mean RX IRR in 65nm CMOS

A third order active-RC Chebyshev low-pass filter for a mobile terminal receiver supporting carrier aggregation is presented. It has a 0.4 dB passband ripple, reconfigurable bandwidth (4.75-34.75 MHz), automatic RC tuning, and IQ-mismatch correction. The noise power spectral density referred to the filter input is 3.8pA/√Hz at 90 % of the bandwidth. The output referred third order intercept point (OIP3) is 39.4 dBm for a two tone input at 47 MHz and 70 MHz. By digitally controlling the passive circuit elements of the filter, the frequency dependent gain and phase IQ mismatch can be reduced, resulting in a remaining gain error below 0.35 % and a maximum phase error of 0.23 degrees. After calibration, the IQ matching is sufficient for a mean receiver image-rejection ratio of more than 60 dB. The current consumption is 39 mA from a 1.2 V supply.

Complex IF harmonic rejection mixer for non-contiguous dual carrier reception in 65 nm CMOS

This paper presents a complex IF mixer for a double conversion receiver architecture to be used for non-contiguous dual carrier reception as specified in upcoming releases of 3GPP standards. The complex IF mixer contains four harmonic rejection (HR) mixers, each of which is implemented with 64 passive unit cell mixers individually driven by a sequencer to represent an oversampled sinusoidal LO waveform. Each HR mixer is followed by a buffer and a signal distribution network to enable separation of the two carriers as well as IQ-imbalance calibration. The complex IF mixer supports reception of two carriers with up to 65 MHz separation with 12 samples per IF LO period and a clock frequency of 390 MHz. The IF mixer is implemented in 65 nm CMOS, has an area of 0.48 mm2, draws 19.7 mA, and has a harmonic conversion lower than -68 dBc per harmonic.

A 6–9GHz WiMedia UWB RF transmitter in 90nm CMOS

A 6-9 GHz RF transmitter fabricated in a standard digital 90 nm CMOS technology and targeted for WiMedia UWB bandgroup 3 and 6 is presented. The transmitter features high linearity, low spurious emission, low power and small chip area. Measured data show - 5.7dBm output power, -1.4- dBm OIP3, -47 dBc LO leakage and -33.8 dBc sideband rejection with only 72 mW from a 1.2 V power supply at a minimal chip area of 0.24 mm2 active area.

A 16–20 GHz LO system with 115 fs jitter for 24–30 GHz 5G in 28 nm FD-SOI CMOS

A system for mmW LO signal generation targeting 5G is presented. The proposed concept achieves high LO spectral purity at mmW frequencies using standard CMOS SOI technology. The measured performance is in line with 5G outdoor system requirements, which due to multi-path propagation require a smaller sub-carrier spacing than recent indoor mmW systems like IEEE 802.11ad. A set of two fractional-N, PLL based frequency synthesizer instances of the scalable LO system proposed has been implemented in 28 nm FD-SOI CMOS technology, where the chip area of one instance is only 0.11 mm2. Each PLL achieves an in-band phase noise below −100 dBc/Hz for a 28 GHz carrier while consuming just 15 mW from a 1.2 V supply. The FoMj is −244 dB which is the best reported figure for a fractional-N PLL in this frequency range.

Design of a Configurable Complex IF Receiver Supporting LTE Carrier Aggregation

A design methodology based on close interaction between algorithm development and analog implementation is used to develop a configurable complex IF receiver front-end with 60 dB image rejection ratio (IRR). To achieve this high IRR, calibration of the IQ-mismatch is needed. By using statistical link simulations, feasible analog components for calibration are determined and the corresponding required calibration ranges and resolutions are found. In a wideband system, as considered here, both frequency dependent and frequency independent IQ-mismatch are treated. The results from the statistical simulations are based on optimum calibration parameters, and agree very well with those achieved with the implemented algorithm, confirming that 60 dB image rejection ratio is achieved.

MBOA/WiMedia UWB transceiver design in 0.13/spl mu/m CMOS

A highly integrated, WiMedia/MBOA compliant RF transceiver for ultra-wideband (UWB) data communication in the 3-5GHz band is presented. The design includes receiver, transmitter and fast-hopping synthesizer. It is designed in a 0.13mum standard CMOS technology for a single supply voltage of 1.5V. The receiver features a measured noise figure (NF) of 3.6 to 4.1dB over the three sub-bands. The transmitter supports a maximum TX power of 0dBm at 20 dB EVM