This comprehensive treatment of the challenges in low-power RF CMOS design deals with the design and implementation of low- power wireless transceivers in a standard digital CMOS process. It addresses trade-offs and techniques that improve performance, from the component level to the architectural level.

The world of wireless communications is changing very rapidly since a few years. The introduction of digital data communication in combination with digital signal process ing has created the foundation for the development of many new wireless applications. High-quality digital wireless networks for voice communication with global and local coverage, like the GSM and DECT system, are only faint and early examples of the wide variety of wireless applications that will become available in the remainder of this decade. The new evolutions in wireless communications set new requirements for the trans ceivers (transmitter-receivers). Higher operating frequencies, a lower power consump tion and a very high degree of integration, are new specifications which ask for design approaches quite different from the classical RF design techniques. The integrata bility and power consumption reduction of the digital part will further improve with the continued downscaling of technologies. This is however completely different for the analog transceiver front-end, the part which performs the interfacing between the antenna and the digital signal processing. The analog front-end's integratability and power consumption are closely related to the physical limitations of the transceiver topology and not so much to the scaling of the used technology. Chapter 2 gives a detailed study of the level of integration in current transceiver realization and analyzes their limitations. In chapter 3 of this book the complex signal technique for the analysis and synthesis of multi-path receiver and transmitter topologies is introduced.

Design and Modeling of Millimeter-wave CMOS Circuits for Wireless Transceivers describes in detail some of the interesting developments in CMOS millimetre-wave circuit design. This includes the re-emergence of the slow-wave technique used on passive devices, the license-free 60GHz band circuit blocks and a 76GHz voltage-controlled oscillator suitable for vehicular radar applications. All circuit solutions described are suitable for digital CMOS technology. Digital CMOS technology developments driven by Moore’s law make it an inevitable solution for low cost and high volume products in the marketplace. Explosion of the consumer wireless applications further makes this subject a hot topic of the day. The book begins with a brief history of millimetre-wave research and how the silicon transistor is born. Originally meant for different purposes, the two technologies converged and found its way into advanced chip designs. The second part of the book describes the most important passive devices used in millimetre-wave CMOS circuits. Part three uses these passive devices and builds circuit blocks for the wireless transceiver. The book completes with a comprehensive list of references for further readings. Design and Modeling of Millimeter-wave CMOS Circuits for Wireless Transceivers is useful to show the analogue IC designer the issues involved in making the leap to millimetre-wave circuit designs. The graduate student and researcher can also use it as a starting point to understand the subject or proceed to innovative from the works described herein.

This collection of important papers provides a comprehensive overview of low-power system design, from component technologies and circuits to architecture, system design, and CAD techniques. LOW POWER CMOS DESIGN summarizes the key low-power contributions through papers written by experts in this evolving field.

This book provides readers with detailed explanation of the design principles of CMOS integrated circuits for wireless medical and health care, from the perspective of two successfully-commercialized applications. Design techniques for both the circuit block level and the system level are discussed, based on real design examples. CMOS IC design techniques for the entire signal chain of wireless medical and health care systems are covered, including biomedical signal acquisition, wireless transceivers, power management and SoC integration, with emphasis on ultra-low-power IC design techniques.

This work covers the design of CMOS fully integrated low power low phase noise voltage controlled oscillators for telecommunication or datacommuni- tion systems. The need for low power is obvious, as mobile wireless telecommunications are battery operated. As wireless telecommunication systems use oscillators in frequency synthesizers for frequency translation, the selectivity and signal to noise ratio of receivers and transmitters depend heavily on the low phase noise performance of the implemented oscillators. Datacommunication s- tems need low jitter, the time-domain equivalent of low phase noise, clocks for data detection and recovery. The power consumption is less critical. The need for multi-band and multi-mode systems pushes the high-integration of telecommunication systems. This is o?ered by sub-micron CMOS feat- ing digital ?exibility. The recent crisis in telecommunication clearly shows that mobile hand-sets became mass-market high-volume consumer products, where low-cost is of prime importance. This need for low-cost products - livens tremendously research towards CMOS alternatives for the bipolar or BiCMOS solutions in use today.

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) are expected to promote new applications for the ambulatory health monitoring of chronic patients and elderly population, aiming to improve their quality of life and independence. These networks are composed by wireless sensor nodes (WSNs) used for measuring physiological variables (e.g., glucose level in blood or body temperature) or controlling therapeutic devices (e.g., implanted insulin pumps). These nodes should exhibit a high degree of energy autonomy in order to extend their battery lifetime or even make the node supply to rely on harvesting techniques. Typically, the power budget of WSNs is dominated by the wireless link and, hence, many efforts have been directed during the last years toward the implementation of power efficient transceivers. Because of the short range (typically no more than a few meters) and low data rate (typically in between 10 kb/s and 1 Mb/s), simple communication protocols can be employed. One of these protocols, specifically tailored for WBAN applications, is the Bluetooth low energy (BLE) standard. This book describes the challenges and solutions for the design of ultra-low power transceivers for WBANs applications and presents the implementation details of a BLE transceiver prototype. Coverage includes not only the main concepts and architectures for achieving low power consumption, but also the details of the circuit design and its implementation in a standard CMOS technology.