Reconfigurable RF Receiver Frontends for Multi-Standard Radios

Abstract

Several Wireless Communication Standards have been developed over the past few decades to address the growing and varying needs of the users. For example, while cellular access technologies such as GSM and CDMA have satisfied the Wide-Area needs for voice and moderate-speed data communication, the IEEE 802.11 series of standards have satisfied the Local-Area demands for high-speed network access. Furthermore, the ability to establish a Private-Area Network (PAN) has been made possible by the introduction of the Bluetooth standard. While these and other wireless standards were individually developed and optimized for a specific need, the users expect most, if not all, of them to be incorporated and available to them on a single device; i.e., their handsets. To fulfill this requirement, a new approach to the design of Radio-Frequency (RF) receivers and transmitters shall be adopted in order to accommodate the current and have the capability of handling the future wireless standards. This document presents the review of current state-of-the-art Multi-Standard Receiver Frontend architectures as well as the Design, Analysis, and Simulation results for a Reconfigurable Multi-standard CMOS Low-Noise Amplifier (LNA) covering the DCS1800, PCS1900, AWS1700, and IMT2100 frequency bands; utilizing positive feedback to improve gain and provide flexibility in input power matching [5], cross-coupling noise cancellation technique [6], and on-chip transistor-based current source. The simulation has been carried out using a 0.12µm CMOS technology and Cadence’s Virtuoso Spectre simulation software.