TABLE OF CONTENTS Today, silicon CMOS, bipolar and BiCMOS technologies dominate the field of digital and low-frequency analog monolithic integrated circuits. At RF frequencies of 500 MHz and above, the choice of technology is no longer so straightforward, as other technologies based on III-V semiconductors (GaAs, InP) or SiGe heterojunction devices show distinct advantages at least for certain building blocks like RF power amplifiers. The advantages and disadvantages of each of these technologies with respect to performance, cost, ease of design, etc. are currently a subject of hot debate, both in industrial companies and academic circles. Furthermore, the discussion with regard to the optimum choice of integrated circuit technology for a certain part of an RF radio system partly overlaps with the no less controversial debate on the desirability and usefulness of the so-called "single-chip radio." The overlap of both controversies about technology and the "right level of integration" also shows up in the three contributions of this part.
Some contributions in this volume deal with aspects of the single-chip radio mainly from a CMOS point of view. This seems natural because most of the...
