Abstract:
A voltage-controlled oscillator including an active oscillator circuit, an inductor, and capacitive circuits is disclosed. The capacitive circuits are selectively turned on and off to control the frequency of the voltage-controlled oscillator. Particularly, the inductor and the capacitors in the capacitive circuits form LC circuits that provide feedback to the active oscillator circuit. To avoid damage to the switches in the capacitive circuits, the capacitive circuits further comprise resistors. The resistors can be configured in several different ways so that the voltage-controlled oscillator can have a high degree of reliability, and a wide tuning range with constant phase noise performance.
Abstract:
A single chip RF communication system and method is provided including a transmitter and a receiver. The RF communication system in accordance with the present invention can include an antenna that receives/transmits RF signals, a PLL that generates multi-phase clock signals having a frequency different from a carrier frequency and a reference signal having the carrier frequency, a demodulation-mixer that mixes the received RF signals with the multi-phase clock signals having the frequency different from the carrier frequency to output signals having a frequency reduced relative to the carrier frequency, two stage amplification that amplifies a selected channel signal to a required dynamic level, and an A/D converting unit for converting the RF signals from the mixing unit into digital signals. The two stage amplification can provide the selected channel signal with sufficient gain, even when an adjacent channel signal is output by the demodulation mixer with greater amplitude or power.
Abstract:
A variable gain, low noise amplifier is described, which is suitable as the input amplifier for a wireless terminal, or as the pre-amplifier stage of a wireless terminal transmitter. The amplifier may achieve variable gain by deploying a network of transistors in a parallel array, each independently selectable by a PMOS switch, and providing the variable resistance for the resonant circuit. Power dissipation can also be mitigated by using a network of driving transistors, each independently selectable by a PMOS switch. The resonant frequency of the amplifier may be made tunable by providing a selection of optional pull-up capacitors.
Abstract:
A communications receiver includes a baseband signal recovery circuit which uses a low-IF architecture for data reception. The baseband signal recovery circuit uses a full-analog implementation for channel selection and filtering. Thus, the overhead placed on the design of analog-to-digital converter is greatly relaxed and most of hardware can be re-used for multi-mode applications with only a slight modification.
Abstract:
A tuning circuit for an RF communications system and method includes a master block that outputs a control signal to a slave block. The master block can include a first filter having a high pass filter and a low pass filter that each receive the control signal, a first rectifier coupled to the high pass filter, a second rectifier coupled to the low pass filter, and a converter coupled to the first and second rectifiers that outputs the control signal. The first filter is preferably a gm-C poly-phase filter. Output signals of the gm-C poly-phase filter include high and low pass filtering signals resulting from similarly configured circuits so that the output signals have the same electrical characteristics, which results in an increased accuracy, for example, in a cut-off frequency.
Abstract:
A translational-loop transmitter generates RF signals using at most one phase-locked-loop (PLL) circuit. In one embodiment, a single PLL generates two local oscillation signals. The first oscillation signal is mixed with a baseband signal to generate an intermediate frequency signal. The second oscillation signal is input into the translational loop to adjust a voltage-controlled oscillator to the desired carrier frequency. In order to perform this type of modulation, the frequencies of the local oscillation signals are set so that they are harmonically related to one another relative to the carrier frequency. Other embodiments generate only one oscillation signal. Under these conditions, the intermediate frequency signal is generated using the oscillation signal, and a frequency divider in the translational loop is used to generate a control signal for adjusting the voltage-controlled oscillator to the carrier frequency. In still other embodiments, a transmitter signal is generated without using any phase-locked-loop circuits. This is accomplished by generating an intermediate frequency signal using a crystal oscillator, and then using a frequency divider in a feedback loop to generate a control signal for adjusting the voltage-controlled oscillator to the carrier frequency. By minimizing the number of phase-locked-loop circuits in the transmitter, the size, cost, and power requirements of mobile handsets may be significantly reduced.
Abstract:
A single chip RF communication system and method is provided including a transmitter and a receiver. The RF communication system in accordance with the present invention includes an antenna for receiving transmitting RF signals, a PLL for generating multi-phase clock signals having a frequency different from a carrier frequency in response to the multi-phase clock signals and a reference signal having the carrier frequency, a demodulation-mixing unit for mixing the received RF signals with the multi-phase clock signals having the frequency different from the carrier frequency to output the RF signals having a frequency reduced by the carrier frequency and an A/D converting unit for converting the RF signals from the mixing unit into digital signals.
Abstract:
A system and method for improving the signal-to-noise ratio of a frequency generator suppresses phase noise and noise generated from mismatches in the internal generator circuits. This is accomplished using a modulation scheme which shifts spurious noise signals outside the loop bandwidth of the generator. When shifted in this manner, the noise signals maybe removed entirely or to any desired degree using, for example, a filter located along the signal path of the generator. In one embodiment, a Sigma-Delta modulator controls the value of a pulse-swallow frequency divider situated along a feedback path of a phase-locked loop to achieve a desired level of noise suppression. In another embodiment, a reference signal input into a phase-locked loop is modulated to effect noise suppression. In another embodiment, the foregoing forms of modulation are combined to accomplish the desired frequency shift. Through these modulation techniques, the signal-to-noise ratio of the frequency generator may be substantially improved while simultaneously achieving faster lock times.
Abstract:
A method and apparatus that provide a frequency conversion in a radio frequency front-end are disclosed, including a frequency divider that divides an input signal frequency by a predetermined value to produce an output signal frequency; and a frequency mixer that mixes the output signal frequency with a carrier signal frequency to produce a converted signal frequency, which is substantially equal to a difference between the output signal frequency and the carrier signal frequency. The predetermined value and the input signal frequency are selected such that the carrier signal frequency is not substantially equivalent to an integer multiple of the output signal frequency. The method and apparatus can be used in a wireless communication receiver including wireless communication systems and wireless LAN systems.
Abstract:
A bidirectional turbo ISI canceller cancels precursor-ISI as well as postcursor-ISI in a received signal without incorporating a multiplicative feedforward equalization filter. This is accomplished by taking a three-step receiver design approach. In the first step, an optimal single-symbol RAKE receiver is designed to comprise a CMF, a codeword correlator bank, and an energy bias (EB) canceller under the assumption that no ISI is generated by preceding or trailing symbols. In a second step, a DFE is included for suppressing postcursor-ISI caused by a preceding symbol. Finally, a precursor ISI canceler is used to remove the remaining ISI caused by a trailing symbol. All three components may be integrated into a BTIC-based receiver applying turbo-iteration processing.