Design of Radio Frequency

Circuits and Systems

Emad Hegazi
Professor, ECE
Communication Circuits Research Group
Emad.hegazi@eng.asu.edu.eg
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How to Contact Me
Emad.hegazi@eng.asu.edu.eg
Office hour on Saturday
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Cheating Policy
It is very simple!

If you cheat you get a BIG FAT ZERO
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Lecture Room Rules
Lecture starts ON time exactly
If you find the door open, you may walk in
without permission
If closed, go away.
Leave at any point in time without permission
and without making up excuses
Eating and drinking inside the lecture room is
OK. Just dont eat something crunchy or smelly.
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Content
Wireless Communication Review
Basic signal analysis needs
Noise in Narrow-band systems
Distortion impairments
Receiver architectures
Transmitters
Frequency generation
RF Circuit blocks (LNAs, Mixers, VCOs, Pas)


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References
RF Microelectronics, 2
nd
edition, Behzad
Razavi, Prentice Hall 2012

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Important CAD Tools
CppSim
http://cppsim.com (FreeWare)
Octave as a Matlab clone (open source)
Open source 45nm PDK
http://www.eda.ncsu.edu/wiki/Ncsu-eda-
announcements

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What We Cover
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Introduction

Course/Knowledge Requirement for being a Circuit Designer
Basic Electronics
Analog Circuit Design
Advanced Analog Circuit Design
RF Circuit Data Converters High Speed IO Power Management
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RF Circuits
RF Circuits include Low Noise amplifiers, power amplifiers, Mixers, Phase locked loops
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Typical Transceiver Architecture
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Applications Using RF Transceivers
Source: http://www.ifh.ee.ethz.ch/de/about-ifh-groups/forschung.html
http://everythingtechnology.net/cellular-technology-the-facts-most-people-dont-know/

Many Applications, Several Frequency Ranges We need a Standard!
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Standards

A Standard defines many specifications for the whole system such as:
Sensitivity
Desired BER and Modulation
Blocker distribution and modulation
Maximum transmitted power
and power Mask
Range of communications
Frequency Range
Source: http://www.maxim-ic.com/app-
notes/index.mvp/id/4010


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Examples of Specifications
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Main Wireless Standards
Market
Name
Data
Rate
Range Cost
WiMax 15Mb 5km $8
3G 14Mb 10km $6
WiFi 54Mb 50-100m $4
Bluetooth 700kb 10m $1
Zigbee 250kb 30m $4
UWB 400Mb 5-10m $5
RFID 1-200kb 0.01-10m $0.04
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Why Digital Communication
Allows information to be packetized (can compress
information in time and efficiently send as packets through
network)
Analog modulation requires connections that are
continuously available (Inefficient use of radio channel if
there is dead time in information flow)
Allows error correction to be achieved (less sensitivity to
radio channel imperfections)
Supports a wide variety of information content (voice, text
and email messages, video can all be represented as
digital bit streams)

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System Engineering
It is the art and
science of putting
things together.
Combines multiple
disciplines
Should be agnostic to
the implementation
technology in concept
Should take
advantage of the
technology specifics
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Unrelated Historical
Example
Konrad Zuse (1910-1995)
who invented the world
first computer
First high level
programming language
Plankalkl
Used vacuum state tubes
and mechanical memory
First to use binary to do
arithmetic.
http://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Konrad_Zu
se
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Typical Digital Communication Transceiver
In any digital transceiver, the I-Q components must be
generated before down-converting the signal to
baseband
QPSK modulation
QPSK de-modulation
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Quadrature Modulation
The transmission is done using two orthogonal
carriers carrying different information but occupying
the same frequency band
Demodulation must be done in the RX before
converting the signal to baseband
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All transmitted and received signals are REAL.
Complex notation is to simplify the analysis
Real or Imaginary?
Physical signals are all real.
Complex representation is a way to
simplify signal processing of narrow
band RF signals
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Re {Z}
Im {Z}
Re {Z}
Im {Z}
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Narrow-band vs Wideband

Narrow-band signals are signals for
which the BW/fo <<1
Wideband signals are signals for
which BW/fo>0.5
Ultra-wide band is a band allocated
from 3-10 GHz targeted for:
High data rate transmission
Very low energy emission per Hz
Pulsed - UWB OFDM-UWB
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Frequency Allocation Chart
www.ntra.gov.eg
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Frequency Allocation Chart
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RF IC Design Flow
Initial Circuit Design
Design Specification and Topology
Initial Floor Plan
Interconnect passive
estimation
Passive and
Interconnect
Simulations
Redesign the circuit
Layout
Post-layout Simulation
Optimize the
performance
Fabrication and Measurements
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PCB: Is it Important?
Source: http://parts.digikey.com/1/parts-manfs/sigma-
designs-inc
Source: http://www.visionxinc.com/Applications/Wire-Bond-
Inspection-and-Measurement.html
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Required Knowledge from A RF Designer

Communications

Analog basics

Microwave basics

PCB layout basics

RF Circuit design: This Course


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Course Objective

To teach the basic knowledge required for
RF circuit analysis and design using CMOS technology
Transceiver architectures and their specifications
Simulating RF Circuits

Specifications
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Passives
Capacitors

Spiral Inductor

Main Specifications
Quality Factor
Loss Mechanism

Impedance Transformations


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Transceiver Architectures

Which architecture should we select?
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Basic Building Blocks
Low Noise Amplifier

Mixer

Voltage Controlled Oscillator

Power Amplifier

AM/FM Modulators

PLL (Basic)
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Wireless Communication
Transmitting voice and data using
electromagnetic waves in open space
Electromagnetic waves
Travel at speed of light (c = 3x10
8
m/s)
Has a frequency (f) and wavelength (l)
c = f x l
Higher frequency means higher energy photons
The higher the energy photon the more penetrating
the radiation is





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Electromagnetic Spectrum
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Wavelength of Some Technologies
GSM Phones:
frequency ~= 900 Mhz
wavelength ~= 33cm
PCS Phones
frequency ~= 1.8 Ghz
wavelength ~= 17.5 cm
Bluetooth:
frequency ~= 2.4Gz
wavelength ~= 12.5cm
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Types of Communication
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Duplex Communication -
FDD
Forward Channel and Reverse Channel use different frequency
bands
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Basics - Propagation
Waves behave more like light at higher
frequencies
Difficulty in passing obstacles
More direct paths
They behave more like radio at lower
frequencies
Can pass obstacles
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Space Division Multiple Access
primitive applications
are Sectorized
antennas
in future adaptive
antennas simultaneously
steer energy in the
direction of many users at
once

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What is Decibel (dB)
What is dB (decibel):
A logarithmic unit that is used to describe a ratio.
Let say we have two values P1 and P2. The difference (ratio)
between them can be expressed in dB and is computed as
follows:
10 log (P1/P2) dB
Example: transmit power P1 = 100W,
received power P2 = 1 W
The difference is 10log(100/1) = 20dB.

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dB
dB unit can describe very big ratios with
numbers of modest size.
See some examples:
Tx power = 100W, Received power = 1W
Tx power is 100 times of received power
Difference is 20dB
Tx power = 100W, Received power = 1mW
Tx power is 100,000 times of received power
Difference is 50dB
Tx power = 1000W, Received power = 1mW
Tx power is million times of received power
Difference is 60dB
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dBm/ dBW
For power differences,
dBm is used to denote
a power level with
respect to 1mW as the
reference power level.
Let say Tx power of a
system is 100W.
Question: What is the Tx
power in unit of dBm?
Answer:
Tx_power(dBm) =
10log(100W/1mW) =
10log(100W/0.001W) =
10log(100,0000) =
50dBm
For power differences,
dBW is used to denote
a power level with
respect to 1W as the
reference power level.
Let say Tx power of a
system is 100W.
Question: What is the Tx
power in unit of dBW?
Answer:
Tx_power(dBW) =
10log(100W/1W) =
10log(100) = 20dBW.
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Narrow Band vs.
Wideband
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System Theory
Implications
Linear Nonlinear
Time Invariant Time Varying
Memory having Memoryless
In the coming few slides let me discuss
these properties.

We will be focusing on weakly nonlinear
Time Invariant/varying systems

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Linearity
The system gives a linearly proportionate
responses to different stimuli
If Y(t) = f [x(t)] then
f [a
1
.(x
1
(t) + a
2
. x
2
(t)]=a
1
Y
1
(t)+ a
2
. Y
2
(t)
Can be fully described by its impulse
response
Can be characterized by their Laplace and
Fourier transforms

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Real or Imaginary?
Physical signals are all real.
Complex representation is a way to
simplify signal processing of arrow band
RF signals
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Re {Z}
Im {Z}
Re {Z}
Im {Z}
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THE WIRELESS
ENVIRONMENT
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Functions of the Rx
Limit bandwidth to the
desired service band
(selectivity)
Knock-down
interference(linearity)
Provide gain to weak
signals.
Bring signal to
baseband (Time
Variance)
Provide highest SNR
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Performance Indicators
BER is the main
performance indicator
for a given modulation
type.
Higher SNR means
more ability to detect
the signal
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Receiver SNR
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Impedance Matching
SNRmax
SNRmin
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Sensitivity
Adjacent Channel
Interference
Co-Channel
Interference
Desired
Channel
Adjacent
Channel
Adjacent
Channel
MHz
890.4 890.4 890.6
890.4
890.4
890.4
890.4
890.4
890.4
890.4
GMSK spectrum
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Sensitivity
Receiver Thermal Noise
Receiver Added Noise
Desired Signal
(dB) (dBm)
(dB) (dB) (dBm) (dBm)
min
min min ,
SNR P
SNR F kTB P Sensitvity
nf
receiver in


(dB) (dBm) (dBm)
receiver nf
F kTB P Floor Noise
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Minimum detectable signal given the type of modulation and BER required
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Sensitivity
ERP = +50 dBm
Power to Antenna: +40 dBm
TX. Antenna Gain: +10 dB
Frequency: 10 GHz
Bandwidth: 100MHz
Rcvr. Antenna Gain: +60 dB
Transmitter:
ERP
Path Losses
Rcvr. Ant. Gain
Power to Receiver
Receiver:
Noise Floor @ 290K
Noise in 100 MHz BW
Receiver N.F.
Total noise on channel
Margin: 4 dB

+ 50 dBm
-190 dB
60 dB
-80 dBm
- 174 dBm/Hz
+ 80 dB
+10 dB
-84 dBm
Path Losses: 200 dB
+
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What the Rx adds to ambient noise
SNR -80- -84= +4 dB
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Selectivity
Ch
1
Ch
2
Ch
n
Ch
3
RF Filter
freq
f
RF
Ch
1
Ch
2
Ch
n
Ch
3
freq
f
IF
IF Filter
freq
f
LO
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Selectivity
RF Filter
IF Filter
IF filter rejection at the adjacent channel
LO spurious in IF bandwidth
Phase noise of LO
Receiver Added Noise
Receiver Thermal Noise
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Nonlinear System
Representation
Fourier transform is not applicable so F(.)
means function


Taylor series is suited for representing
nonlinear memory-less systems.
Assume a scenario where you have
being the desired signal (typically weak)
and are two interfering signals
(typically strong)
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Nonlinear System
Representation
Here is the output of the system:

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Nonlinearity Artifacts
Assuming a 3-tone input



Depending on the relative wieghts of the
inputs, different characteristics can be
evaluated

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Gain Compression
In the presence of a blocker
Gain is reduced due to nonlinearity

This impacts the weak desired
Signal.

Typically specified by the 1 dB
Compression point
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1 dB Compression Point
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Inter-modulation
Nonlinearity generates product terms
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Some of the Ugly Results
Bear in mind that RF circuits are typically frequency-selective
Bad news for wideband receivers!
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Inter-modulation Products
The product of importance depends largely on receiver architecture
and frequency plan
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Quantifying Inter-
modulation Distortion:
Intercept Points
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3
rd
Order Distrotion
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IP3
65
DP
DP=2X
X
X
X=DP/2

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Two Tone Test
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Calculating IP3
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68
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IP2
Distortion grows faster than fundamental.
In the case of 2
nd
order distortion, it grows 2x faster as input
power is increased.
69
DP
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IP2
70
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Blocking/Desesitization
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Nonlinearity in Cscaded
Systems
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IP3 of a Cascaded Rx
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Example: Two-stage IP3
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IPn
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Receiver Noise
Transducer noise is boosted by the input-
referred noise of the receiver.
Antenna impedance is set to 50 W
Two input noise sources are correlated.
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Conjugate Matching
For maximum power transfer
Antenna
Receiver
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Noise in Receivers
Receiver noise level directly limits
sensitivity
Receiver sensitivity = minimum input
power that the receiver can detect
Noise figure of cascaded stages
Noise figure of RF receivers from antenna to
ADC output
Noise figure of passive networks
Noise figure of ADC

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Noise Figure of Two-Port
Network

Resistor Source of Noise
Noise Referred Input Total
1
2
2

RS
s n n
out
in
V
R I V
SNR
SNR
NF
2
2
RS
in
in
V
V
SNR

2 2
2
2 2 2 2
2 2
s n n RS
in
s n n v RS v
in v
out
R I V V
V
R I V A V A
V A
SNR

Noise Figure= 10 * log (Noise Factor) [dB]

Noise Temperature = T
n
= T
ref
* (F
at T
n
1) [K] (T
ref
= 290
K)

=> F
at T
n
= 1 + T
n
/ T
ref

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Noise in Two-Port
Networks
The noise of a two-port network can be modeled by a series noise voltage source
and a shunt current source at the input of a noiseless network.
(Input-Referred Noise Representation of Two-Port Network)
With both voltage and current noise sources present, the total input-referred noise
becomes independent of the source impedance (Rs)
For Rs= 0, I
n
has not effect and all the noise is represented by V
n

For Rs= infinity, V
n
has not effect and all the noise is represented by I
n

For other Rs values, both V
n
and I
n
contribute the total input-referred noise
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Noise Figure of Cascaded
Stages
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Cascaded Noise Figure
In a line-up of receiver stages, use Friis
equation



Gi is the power gain
Says that the noise factor F is more
influenced by earlier stages
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Noise Factor of a Passive
Network
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Noise Figure Calculation
of BPF Followed by LNA
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LTI Systems

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Frequency Response of
LTI systems

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