RFIC Design


References – Phase Locked Loops

Phase-Locked Loops for High-Frequency Receivers and Transmitters, Mike Curtin &; Paul O’Brien, Analog Devices Part-1 | Part-2 | Part-3 Practical Tips for Phase Locked Loop Design, Dennis Fischette Fractional/Integer-N PLL Basics, Curtis Barrett, Texas Intruments PLL Performance, Simulation and Design Handbook 4th Edition Dean Banerjee, Natioanal Semiconductor A Fully Integrated Fractional-N Frequency […]


Analog/RF IC Design Research Groups

Some Analog/RF IC design research groups around the world: Research in RFIC Design, Meyer/Niknejad Group, University of California, Berkeley. Research in Analog IC Design, Paul Gray/Robert Meyer Group,University of California, Berkeley. Communication Circuits Laboratory (CCL) , Razavi, University of California, Los Angeles. High Speed Electronics Laboratory , M.C. Frank Chang, […]


Carrier Triple Beat Test

[Could not find the bibliography file(s) Triple beat test is employed to mimic the cross-modulation distortion scenario and validate the performance in 3G and 4G/LTE devices. In Triple Beat test two tones and at Tx frequency and another tone at Rx frequency produces, intermod components at . If the two […]


Third order Intercept Point (IP3)

Thrid order intercept point(IP3) is a used to quantify weak non-linearity in an amplifier or RF system. It is an interpolated point where the fundamental component power curve meets the third order intermod(IMD3) component power curve. Consider a nonlinear amplifier whose input-output characteristic is represented by a 3rd order polynomial […]


Maximum Power Transfer

The power transfer from a source to it’s load is maximum when their respective impedance are complex conjugate of each other. Let and The power delivered to load is given by (1)   The condition for maximum power transfer is Therefore, and Under this condition, power delivered to load is […]


dBm Calculator

dBm is the power ratio of measured power referenced to 1 milliwatt (mW) in decibels (dB).     (1)   A change in power ratio by a factor of 10 is a 10 dB change. A change in power ratio by a factor of 2 is approximately a 3 dB […]


RF Design – Why Zo is 50 Ohms? 1 comment

The impedance of a coaxial cable depends on (1)   where, diameter of outer conductor diameter of inner conductor characteristic impedance of the cable permmitivity of free-space relative permittivity of dielectric From Eq.(1), we can conclude that it is the ratio that defines the characteristic impedance of the cable. The […]


Free-space Path Loss

Friss Equation Friss Transmission Equation gives an estimate of power received by an antenna from another antenna radiating power at some distance away. If the antenna radiates power uniformly in all directions, it is called isotropic antenna. Power() flows out from the transmit antenna in spherical wavefronts. Thus the power […]


Wireless Receiver Architectures

Various architectures of receivers has been proposed in literature, but most popular architectures among them like Heterodyne, Homodyne, Wideband-IF and Low-IF are presented here. Heterodyne Arch. Super-heterodyne Architecture was invented by Armstrong in 1917 and is the most widely used architecture in wireless transceivers so far. It is a dual […]