High-Linearity CMOS RF Front-End Circuits

This book focuses on high performance radio frequency integrated circuits (RF IC) design in CMOS. 1. Development of radio frequency ICs Wireless communications has been advancing rapidly in the past two decades. Many high performance systems have been developed, such as cellular systems (AMPS, GSM, TDMA, CDMA, W-CDMA, etc. ), GPS system (global po- tioning system) and WLAN (wireless local area network) systems. The rapid growth of VLSI technology in both digital circuits and analog circuits provides benefits for wireless communication systems. Twenty years ago not many p- ple could imagine millions of transistors in a single chip or a complete radio for size of a penny. Now not only complete radios have been put in a single chip, but also more and more functions have been realized by a single chip and at a much lower price. A radio transmits and receives electro-magnetic signals through the air. The signals are usually transmitted on high frequency carriers. For example, a t- ical voice signal requires only 30 Kilohertz bandwidth. When it is transmitted by a FM radio station, it is often carried by a frequency in the range of tens of megahertz to hundreds of megahertz. Usually a radio is categorized by its carrier frequency, such as 900 MHz radio or 5 GHz radio. In general, the higher the carrier frequency, the better the directivity, but the more difficult the radio design.

The rapidly growing wireless communication industry is increasingly
demanding CMOS RF ICs due to their lower costs and higher integration
levels. The RF front-end of such wireless systems often needs to
handle widely disparate signal levels: small desired signals and
large interferers. Therefore, it becomes necessary to have highly
linear circuits to increase the system dynamic range. However,
traditional CMOS circuit designs are usually limited in either their
speed or in their linear performance. New techniques are needed to
meet the demand for high linearity at radio frequencies.

High-Linearity CMOS RF Front-End Circuits presents some unique
techniques to enhance the linearity of both the receiver and
transmitter. For example, using harmonic cancellation techniques, the
linearity of the receiver front-end can be increased by few tens of
dB with only minimal impact on the other circuit parameters. The new
parallel class A&B power amplifier can not only increase the
transmitter's output power in the linear range, but can also result
in significant savings in power consumption.

High-Linearity CMOS RF Front-End Circuits can be used as a textbook
for graduate courses in RF CMOS design and will also be useful as a reference for the
practicing engineer.