Radio-Frequency Digital-to-Analog Converters: Implementation in Nanoscale CMOS

With the proliferation of wireless networks, there is a need for more compact, low-cost, power efficient transmitters that are capable of supporting the various communication standards, including Bluetooth, WLAN, GSM/EDGE, WCDMA and 4G of 3GPP cellular. This book describes a novel idea of RF digital-to-analog converters (RFDAC) and demonstrates how they can realize all-digital, fully-integrated RF transmitters that support all the current multi-mode and multi-band communication standards.

With this book the reader will:

Understand the challenges of realizing a universal CMOS RF transmitterRecognize the design issues and the advantages and disadvantages related to analog and digital transmitter architecturesMaster designing an RF transmitter from system level modeling techniques down to circuit designs and their related layout know-howsGrasp digital polar and I/Q calibration techniques as well as the digital predistortion approachesLearn how to generate appropriate digital I/Q baseband signals in order to apply them to the test chip and measure the RF-DAC performance.

Highlights the benefits and implementation challenges of software-defined transmitters using CMOS technologyIncludes various types of analog and digital RF transmitter architectures for wireless applicationsPresents an all-digital polar RFDAC transmitter architecture and describes in detail its implementationPresents a new all-digital I/Q RFDAC transmitter architecture and its implementationProvides comprehensive design techniques from system level to circuit levelIntroduces several digital predistortion techniques which can be used in RF transmittersDescribes the entire flow of system modeling, circuit simulation, layout techniques and the measurement process

1. Introduction 2. Digital Polar Transmitter Architecture 3. Digital Baseband of  The Polar Transmitter 4. RF Front-End (RFDAC) of the Polar Transmitter 5. Situation Measurement Results of the Polar Transmitter 6. Idea of All-Digital I/Q Modulator 7. Orthogonal Summation: A 2x3-Bit All-Digital I/Q RF-DAC 8. Towards High-Resolution RF-DAC: The System Design Perspective 9. Differential I/Q DPA and Power Combining Network 10. A Wideband 2x13-Bit All-Digital I/Q RFDAC 11. Measurement Results of the 2x13-Bit I/Q RFDAC 12. Conclusions

Appendix A. Polar Transmitter Appendix B. I/Q RFDAC