The interrelationships between
signal processing quality, power
consumption and transmit
power/receiver sensitivity are complicated by the requirements of
OFDM signal processing for the RF
physical layer. Yet, along with these
1
inherent challenges, the transition
to OFDM provides the opportunity
to develop converged multi-mode
RF physical layer functionality. As
high-bandwidth wireless content is
delivered to a wide variety of con-
sumer platforms, system designers
will need the RF physical layer to
have “operational amplifier-like”
qualities, meaning it will need the
ability to be optimized for specific
requirements and self-compensate
performance for wide variations in
operating conditions.
An op amp integration model for
RF would also invite collaboration
between numerous product and technology partners, such as what has occurred at the content processing lev-
el. This will surely stimulate innovations that will improve the wireless
experience. The rapid introduction of
navigation as a mobile phone application was made possible by the relative
ease of introduction of the GPS hardware solution onto the mobile phone
platform. As GPS becomes integral to
the mobile phone, applications and
operating systems will better integrate navigation and other location-based services into the mobile phone
experience.
TX RX
BALUN
SWITCH BPF
BASEBAND
MAC
TRANSCEIVER
Rg
Bsel V_LNA
LNA DECODE
2.4 GHz
LNA
Ra
5 GHz
PA
RX
DIPLEXER
T/R
ANT
SWITCH
2.8 V FET
LDO SW
WLAN/BT RX
SINGLE
BPF
CHIP BT
Tg
TRAP
FILTER
2.4 GHz
PA
FILTER
LDO + SWITCH
OCCUPIES MORE AREA
THAN THE PA
802.11B/G
TRANSCEIVER
SP3T
PA
TX/RX BPF
SWITCH
Vref
LDO SWITCH
DETECTOR
TX
DIPLEXER
Ta
5 GHz
PA
COUPLER FILTER
PDag
ENa ENg
▲ Fig. 7 RF signal chain that requires 18 mm2 of board space.
▲ Fig. 8 Highly integrated SiGe front-end module.
