Overview

In designing and developing an RF transceiver for a wireless mobile communication system, we shall first determine what kind of architecture will be employed based on considerations of performance, cost, power consumption, and robust implementation. In this chapter we are going to present the architectures of the RF receiver and transmitter that are practically applicable to the mobile stations of wireless communication systems.

In general, an RF receiver is defined from the port connected to a receiver antenna to an analog-to-digital converter ( ADC), and an RF transmitter is defined from a digital-to-analog converter ( DAC) to the port connected to a transmitter antenna. The RF receiver and transmitter are usually formed not only by RF circuitry and devices but also by intermediate frequency ( IF) and analog base band circuitry and devices. The ADC and DCA are often used as a boundary between the RF transceiver and its digital counterpart. However, this boundary is getting ambiguous with the state of the art of the ADC/DAC running at higher and higher sampling since the ADC/DAC and the corresponding digital signal processors now become IF or even RF devices. In these cases, the ADC/DAC and some digital signal processing will be also considered as part of the RF transceivers.

The main building blocks of an RF transceiver can be functionally classified into following categories: frequency filters, amplifiers, frequency converters, modulator/demodulators, oscillators, synthesizers, ADC/DAC, signal coupler/divider/combiner/attenuators, switches, power/voltage detectors, etc. An RF transceiver will use most of these...