Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Receiver Architectures
Markku Renfors
Topics
PART 1
What is needed in the receiver front-end?
· Filters
- Impossible to achieve sufficient selectivity by
tunable RF filters (operating in the RF frequency
band of the modulated signal) to separate the
desired signal from others.
- Sufficient selectivity can be achieved by fixed (RF or IF)
filters based on special technologies (SAW,
Surface Acoustic Wave, ceramic, crystal,
mechanical)
or active analog filters operating on basedband or low
bandpass center frequencies
or multirate digital filters up to some hundreds of MHz
range.
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f
0
W
FILTERING ß
f
0
f
0
f
0 fc
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f I Q
fc+fLO
f
-fc 0 fc
cos(w LO t)
f
-fc-fLO -fc+fLO 0 fc-fLO fc +fLO
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· Oscillators
- Voltage (or current or digitally) controlled oscillators
(VCO, ICO, DCO) are used to generate the local
oscillator (LO) signals in a tunable manner.
- In a communications transceiver (receiver+transmitter,
RX+TX), the frequency synthesizer is one of the main
blocks. It is used for generating all the needed LO
signals in a controllable manner.
· Analog-to-digital interface
- Various ADC technologies
- Key performance metrics:
o Number of bits / Dynamic range / SNR
o Sampling jitter effects
- Main bottleneck in advanced DSP-based architectures.
- Room for innovative solutions
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PART 2
Classical Receiver Architecture:
The Superheterodyne
AGC
LO
RF-FILTER
+fLO -fLO
IF-FILTER
0 fIF=fLO-fRF
Alternatives in Superheterodynes
Down-conversion rx Upconversion rx
- fIF << fRF - fIF > fRF
- easier to get good
selectivity at first IF
- easier to get good
image rejection
Complicated structure
Spurious responses
Direct-Conversion
Receiver Architecture
TUNED
TO RF I
LO LOWPASS
CHANNEL
FILTERS
90°
ZERO IF
“Zero IF” -principle
Advantages
· No image bands => RF-filtering not so critical
· Not so much spurious responses
· Simple structure, no IF filters
Problem: Difficulties in implementation: dc offsets, leakage
between RX and TX in full duplex operation
Direct-conversion principle has become quite popular
in recent years in mobile terminals!
· This is mostly due to the availability of effective digital
calibration/compensation methods.
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SELF-MIXING
OF INTERFERER
LO SELF-MIXING LO
Other issues
f
0
-fLO
f
-fIF 0 fIF A COMPLEX
BANDPASS
FILTER
I
MIRROR I
SIGNAL
PASSIVE SUPPRESSION
POLYPHASE +
FILTER FINAL Q
Q DOWN-
CONVERSION
I Q
HF LO
+ +
I in I out
+ +
Q in Q out
- -
I in I out
- -
Q in Q out
LPF
RF
INPUT sinw1t sinw2t
cosw1 t cosw2 t
LPF
From the latter form, we can identify the strength of the two
spectral components produced by the two frequency
translations. The ratio of the image and desired signal
powers is obtained as
2
1 - ge - jf
2 2 1 + g 2 - 2 g cos f
R = =
jf 2 1 + g 2 + 2 g cos f
1 + ge
2
10
Amplitude imbalance in dB
0
-10
Image attenuation [dB]
2
-20
-30 0.5
0.2
-40
0.1
-50
0.05
0
-60
-70
-1 0 1 2
10 10 10 10
Phase imbalance in degrees
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2 1 + g ( f ) 2 - 2 g ( f )cos f ( f )
R( f ) =
1 + g ( f ) 2 + 2 g ( f )cos f ( f )
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f
0
+fLO -fLO
f
0
f
0
+fLO -fLO
A COMPLEX
BANDPASS
FILTER
f
-fIF 0 fIF
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Summary 1:
Techniques for Providing Image Rejection in
Different Architectures
Summary 2:
Selectivity Tradeoffs
1. Selectivity at IF (superhet)
- discrete, high-cost IF filters
- less demands for analog circuits after IF
- simple A/D converter
2. Selectivity by analog baseband processing
(direct conversion case)
- no costly IF filters
- more RF gain needed
=> RF has to very linear to avoid intermodulation effects
- simple A/D converter
3. Selectivity by baseband digital filtering
(direct conversion and low-IF cases)
- no costly IF filters
- more flexible than case 2: selectivity can be easily
adapted to different systems
- more RF gain with high linearity needed
- high dynamic range A/D-converters (14…17 bits)
4. Selectivity by digital filtering after wideband IF
sampling
- simplified IF filter
- high flexibility
- suitable for multi-channel receivers with common
analog parts
- high dynamic range A/D-converters (14…17 bits)
- very strict demands for low jitter sampling clock
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PART 3
Non-Idealities and Performance Metrics of the
Analog Front-End Modules
Noise Figure
The noise factor of an amplifier stage (or some other
component) is determined by the ratio of S/N
ratios at the input and output:
SNRin
F=
SNRout
The noise figure is:
NF = 10 log10 F .
In this context only thermal noise in the input is taken into
account, i.e.,
Sin
SNRin =
N th
where Nth is the thermal noise power and Sin is the input
signal power. Assuming that g is the power gain of the
stage, the SNR at the output is:
Sout gSin
SNRout = =
N out N out
It follows that F = N out gN th
Intermodulation
Consider a test where there are two nearby frequencies f 1 and
f 2 in the system frequency band (like in the neighbouring
channels).
In general, intermodulation produces new frequency components:
k1 f1 + k2 f 2
where k1 , k2 are integers. The order of an intermodulation product
is k1 + k2 .
f
2f1 -f2 f1 f2
Second-order intermodulation produces frequencies
f1 + f 2 , f 2 - f1 .
In general, with low-enough signal levels, the levels of second-
and third-order intermodulation products are proportional to the
2nd and 3rd power of the fundamental signal level, respectively.
Low-order polynomial transfer characteristic can be used for
modelling memoryless nonlinearities. For example, a third-order
model produces only second- and third-order intermodulation. If
the signal transfer characteristic is antisymmetric with respect to
origin, only odd-order terms appear in the polynomial model, and
only odd-order intermodulation products appear. Differential
analog circuitry helps in this direction.
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IP3
The device-specific IP3-values can be used to determine
the strength of third-order intermodulation products, in
reference to the fundamental signal component.
IP3
1dB
OUTPUT LEVEL, dBm
L
TA
CT
N
ME
DU
DYNAMIC RANGE
SPURIOUS-FREE
DA
RO
N
FU
MP
I
ER
RD
D-O
3R
INPUT-REFERRED
1 1
=å
IP3 i IP3i g i +1 g i + 2 L g n
(IP3 in power units)
1 1
=å
IP32 i ( IP3i g i +1 g i + 2L g n )2
1 1
=å
IP 2 i IP 2i gi +1gi + 2 L g n
(IP2 in power units)
1 1
=å
IP 2 i IP 2i gi +1gi + 2Lg n
Non-Idealities in Oscillators
In-band effects (i.e., they may exist even if no adjacent
channels and blockers are present):
· Constant phase error rotates the constellation; This can be
corrected by baseband processing afterwards
· Phase noise: random fluctuations in the instantaneous
phase/frequency of the oscillator cause random constellation
rotations, reducing the noise margin and increasing BER:
4
Q 0
-1
-2
-3
-4
-4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4
I
The RF effects of phase noise tend to be far more critical
than in-band effects:
· Mixing products of the phase noise spectrum and strong
adjacent channel signals (reciprocal mixing) may produce
spurious signals which overlap the desired signal. The following
figure shows the noisy LO spectrum, RF-spectrum, and
spectrum after mixing with practical LO with phase noise.
f f
fLO fc
f
fIF
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f
fIF fIF+600 kHz
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Further reading
Literature
[1] U.L. Rohde, J.C. Whitaker, T.T.N. Bucher, Communications Receivers: Principles and Design,
2nd Edition. McGraw-Hill 1997.
[2] L.E. Larson (Ed.), RF and Microwave Circuit Design for Wireless Communications. Artech
House 1996. (Chapters 2 and 3)
[2a] J.Y.C. Cheah, "Introduction to wireless communications applications and circuit
design," pp. 17-41.
[2b] A.A. Abidi, "Low-power radio-frequency ICs for portable communications," pp. 43-98.
(Also in Proc. IEEE, April 1995.)
[3] C. Chien, Digital Radio Systems on a Chip, A Systems Approach. Kluwer 2001.
[4] S. Sheng, R. Brodersen, Low-Power CMOS Wireless Communications - A Wideband CDMA
System Design. Kluwer 1998.
[5] B. Razavi, "Architecture and circuits for RF CMOS receivers," in Proc. IEEE 1998 Custom
Integrated Circuits Conference, pp. 393-400.
[6] B. Razavi, "Challenges in portable RF transceiver design," IEEE Circuits and Devices
Magazine, Sept. 1996, pp. 12-25.
[7] B. Razavi, "Design considerations for direct-conversion receivers, " IEEE Trans Circuits Syst. -
II, vol. 44, pp. 428-435, June 1997.
[8] J. Crols, M. Steyaert, CMOS Wireless Transceiver Design. Kluwer 1997.
[9] J. Crols, M.S. Steyaert, "Low-IF topologies for high-performance analog front ends of fully
integrated receievrs," IEEE Trans Circuits Syst. -II, vol. 45, pp. 269-282, March 1998.
[10] A. Loke, F. Ali, "Direct conversion radio for digital mobile phones - Design issues, status, and
trends," IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol 50, no. 11, pp. 2422-2435, Nov.
2002.
[11] P.-I. Mak, S.-P U, and R. P. Martins, “Transceiver architecture selection: Review, State-of-the-
Art Survey and Case Study”, IEEE Circuits and Systems Magazine, vol. 7, 2nd quarter 2007, pp. 6-
25.