RF Transceiver (Smartphone Architecture) Part 2

Course 286

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Summary

Corporate Exclusive Course - Part 2 of 2

When requesting this class, please include the course number to help avoid errors in the enrollment process.

With an explosion of wireless mobile devices and services, Wireless system designers have been facing the continuously increasing demand for high data rates and mobility required by new wireless applications and therefore have started research on fifth generation wireless systems that are expected to be deployed 2020. Future challenges facing these potential technologies are the significant increase in the complexity of RF cellular handset communication systems that use massive MIMO and cognitive radio networks.

This course is intended for engineers wanting to learn about the fundamentals of handset RF architectures, including aspects of the radio design covering the entire signal chain from the RF input (High performance passive/active circuits for RF/mm-wave front-ends) to the A/D Digital interface. The aim is understanding system design methods to dissect the different radio architectures with emphasis on the physical layer (RF) for the most advanced commercial LTE and the new MIMO-5G systems.

Learning objectives

Upon completing the course you will be able to:

  • Gain in-depth understanding of the trade-offs between Digital Modulation Techniques and RF Performance and how this relates to system level performance metrics (e.g. C/No, BER, BLER, RSRP, RSSI, RSRQ)
  • Interpret key customer requirement specs (CRS) such as Noise figure (NF), Sensitivity, Spurious free Dynamic range, P1dB - IM2 - IP2 - IM3 - IP3 - Cascaded IIP3, Power Added Efficiency (PAE), Adjacent Channel Leakage Ratio (ACLR), Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR), EVM, AM-AM/AM-PM
  • Understand the trade-offs between block-level performance, choice of radio architectures and overall system performance (e.g. power, area and cost) in relation to a given communication standard
  • Appreciate the improved performance offered by MIMO techniques, advanced RF front ends and Smart Antenna Solutions.
  • Understand architecture trade-offs for Active/Passive circuits for RF/mm-wave front-ends

Target Audience

Part 1 (Course 285) is a prerequisite for this course. RF and baseband IC engineers, system architects, test and product engineers. Technical managers who would like to get exposure to RF smartphone technology.

Outline

Part 2 of 2

Transceiver Architectures and Integration Techniques
 • Distributed antenna arrays- massive MIMO systems • Ultra-Wideband (UWB) cellular architectures • Handset architectures structures • Receivers - Heterodyne Receiver Image Reject Receiver - Homodyne Receiver (quadrature mixing and DC offset) - Tracking Receivers • Transmitters - Direct conversion - Two-step up conversion - Spectrum mask
The Future of RF Front- Ends (RFFE’s) in Handsets
 • MIMO systems • Frequency usage limitations (GaAs-CMOS-SiGe) • Promising RFFE technologies for 5G • Integrated single chip front end IC’s based on the SiGe-BiCMOS process • Architectures and circuits for carrier aggregation, massive MIMO, and full-duplex
Key Technologies
 • 5G RF Front-end Implications • RFFE Integration for high-tier phones and mid-tier phones • Examples of multiple architectures and design flexibilities • Circuit/System Co-simulations- RF Chain analysis
Millimeter Wave Active Designs
 • Active circuits for RF/mm-wave front-ends (PA’s LNA’s VGA’s etc.) • passive circuits for RF/mm-wave front-ends - antenna’s, filter’s, combiner’s, divider’s, coupler’s, switches, phase shifter’s, etc.