Master 2nd year Micro-technologies UPEM

Master 2nd year Applied Micro & Nano-technologies ESIEE

Shermila Mostarshedi
Assistant professor Universit Paris-Est Marne-la-Valle
 References for this course
Microwave and RF Wireless Systems, David M. Pozar, John Wiley, 2001.
Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit Design, John Rogers and Calvin Plett, Artech House,
2003.
RF Circuit Design, Christopher Bowick, Elsevier, 2008.
RF Microelectronics, Behzad Razavi, Prentice Hall, 1998.
RF Circuit Design, Theory and Applications, Reinhold Ludwig and Gene Bogdanov, Prentice
Hall, 2009.
Microwave Transistor Amplifiers, Guillermo Gonzalez, Prentice Hall, 1996.
The Design of CMOS Radio-Frequency Integrated Circuits, Thomas Lee, Cambridge
University Press, 2003.
Practical RF Circuit Design for Modern Wireless Systems, volume 2: Active Circuits
and Systems, Les Besser and Rowan Gilmore, Artech House, 2003.
Microwave Circuit Design Using Linear and Nonlinear Techniques, George D. Vendelin,
Anthony M. Pavio and Ulrich L. Rohde, John Wiley, 2005.
RF/Microwave Circuit Design for Wireless Applications, Ulrich L. Rohde, David P.
Newkirk, John Wiley, 2000.

Radiocommunications numrique/2, Martine Villegas, Dunod, 2007.

lectronique Applique aux Hautes Frquences, Franois de Dieuleveult et Olivier
Romain, Dunod, 2008.

Chapter 1: Introduction 2
 A brief history of electrical circuit design
Late 18th and early 19th century voltaic cells by A. Volta to provide
reliable DC energy to crude circuits
Low frequency AC power efficient transmission of electricity over a
distance Frequency
rise
Faradays law rerouting electric energy by transformers
Mid 19th wave propagation by coupling of the electric and magnetic
fields through space by Maxwell
Late 19th radiation and reception of EM energy through air by Hertz
Early 20th radio and TV transmissions
Late 20th cellular phone, GPS, optical fiber

Major difference:
DC and low-frequency lumped parameter system conventional Kirchhoff law analysis
High-frequency distributed parameter system electromagnetic wave propagation

Chapter 1: Introduction 3
 Questions
At what upper frequency does conventional circuit analysis become
inappropriate?

What characteristics make the high-frequency behavior of electric

components so different from low-frequency behavior?

What new circuit theory has to be employed?

How is this theory applied to the practical design of high-frequency

analog circuits?

Chapter 1: Introduction 4
 IEEE frequency spectrum

Microwave Radio Frequency

Chapter 1: Introduction 5
 RF and Microwave band
1
Phase velocity: vp =

Speed of light in free space: v p = c 3 108 m/s

2 vp
Wavelength: = =
f

Example:
HF f = 30 MHz = 10 m
VHF f = 300 MHz =1 m
UHF f = 3000 MHz = 10 cm
The VHF/UHF band constitutes the point at which the wavelength first
reaches dimensions equivalent to the physical extent of the electronic
system. Here conventional circuit analysis fails and we need to take
into account the wave nature of current and voltage signals.

Necessary theories:
Electromagnetic, transmission line, distributed components, etc.
Chapter 1: Introduction 6
 RF design vocabulary

Parameter Low-frequency design Microwave design

(on-chip) (off-chip)

Signals Voltage (V), current (A) Power (dBm), gain (dBV)

Peak, peak-to-peak, rms

Impedance Zin Zin matched

Zout 0 Zout matched

Noise V2 Noise factor (F), Noise Figure (NF)

V
Hz or dBm
Hz
Hz
Nonlinearity Harmonic distortion Third order intercept point (IP3)
Intermodulation 1-dB compression
Clipping

Chapter 1: Introduction 7
 RF Design
Applications: Cell phone, WLAN, GPS, RFID, etc
Technologies: Bipolar, CMOS, BiCMOS, etc.

Trade-offs Required disciplines

Communication
Theory
Microwave Random
Noise Power
Theory Signals

Signal Transceiver
Propagation RF Architecture
Linearity Frequency
Design

Multiple
IC Design
Access
Supply
Gain
Voltage
Wireless CAD
Standards Tools

Chapter 1: Introduction 8
Block diagram symbols for RF and microwave components

90 power divider
Antenna

Amplifier
Frequency multiplier

Mixer Frequency divider

Switch
Oscillator

or Low-pass filter

or Bandpass filter

or High-pass filter

Chapter 1: Introduction 9
 Basic radio system (1)
Radio transmitter: signals at higher frequencies can be radiated
more efficiently.

Data in: voice, video, data, etc. Baseband signal

Modulator: variation of amplitude, phase or frequency of a sine wave
Intermediate Frequency (IF)
Mixer: produce the sum and the difference of the input IF frequency
and a Local Oscillator (LO) frequency Radio Frequency (RF)
Bandpass filter: reject the much lower frequency
Power Amplifier (PA): increase the output power of the transmitter
Antenna: create propagating electromagnetic waves

Chapter 1: Introduction 10
 Basic radio system (2)
Radio receiver

Antenna: receive radiated EM waves coming from different sources

Bandpass filter: filter undesired frequencies
Low Noise Amplifier (LNA): amplify the very weak noisy received
signal
Mixer: downconvert the signal with LO frequency near RF frequency
IF filer: select the lower frequency
High Gain Amplifier (HGA): increase the power of the received signal
Demodulator: recover baseband information
Chapter 1: Introduction 11
 Basic radio system (3)
Transceiver
Baseband section: mostly digital (DSP), low frequencies
RF section : analog signal, high frequencies

Baseband RF
section section

Example: analog and digital transmitter

Chapter 1: Introduction 12
 Amplifiers
Categories:
Low Noise Amplifier (LNA)
Power Amplifier (PA)
High Gain Amplifier (HGA ) or IF Amplifier

Considerations:
Power
Noise
Nonlinearity (saturation and harmonic distortion)

Semiconductor technology:
Si: inexpensive, up to several GHz
GaAs: expensive, above 1 GHz, incompatible with Si
SiGe: higher frequencies than Si, less expensive than GaAs

Chapter 1: Introduction 13
 Mixers
Role: A mixer is a three port component to provide the sum and the
difference frequencies of two sinusoidal signals. The two signals are
usually the main signal and the one created by the local oscillator.

Different nonlinear circuits:

Passive (diode): conversion loss
Active (transistor): lower conversion loss or conversion gain

Considerations:
Nonlinearity (Harmonic distortion)
Noise

Chapter 1: Introduction 14
 Oscillators
Provide sinusoidal sources for:
Carrier generation
Frequency conversion

Accurate and tunable over a frequency range

Different circuits:
Transistor with a tunable LC network
Drawback: unstable frequency
Crystal controlled oscillator (XCO)
Drawback: not tunable
XCO with a phase-locked loop (PLL)

Chapter 1: Introduction 15
Example : RF transceiver

Chapter 1: Introduction 16
 Example : power amplifier
First stage of a 2 GHz power amplifier for a mobile phone

Chapter 1: Introduction 17
Example : printed circuit

Chapter 1: Introduction 18