ECE 738 - Winter 2017

ECE 738 - VLSI Circuits for Wireless Communication

Instructor

Bosco H. Leung, EIT 4023, extension 32678, email: bleung@uwaterloo.ca

Lectures

Tuesdays 2:30 pm - 5:20 pm in room EIT 3151. Lectures begin on Tuesday January 3, 2017

Course Description

This course covers the design of VLSI circuits used in modern wireless transceivers such as 802.15.6(body area network), 4G/802.16(Wimax), 3G/LTE(long term evolution), DCS- 1800/GSM, DECT. Application on wireless LAN, and multiband WBAN transmitter/ for body area network 802.15.6 will also be covered. Millimeter wave integrated circuit and the underlying device characterization will be explored. A design example on MIMO design, such as for applications to RFID, with wireless encryption using true random number generator will be included. The course is based on the book "VLSI for Wireless Communications", 2nd edition, B. Leung, Springer-Verlag, 2011. In the course design trade-offs in the transceivers are illustrated with practical, real life circuit examples, with low power as an important design objective. A variety of circuits, both analog and digital, will be covered. The course begins with a discussion on the architectures of wireless transceivers. Circuits used in these transceivers will then be covered at the transistor level. These include circuits such as low noise amplifiers, mixers, power amplifiers, oscillators, phase locked loops, A/D and D/A converters, MIMO and antenna interface.

Detailed Description

  1. Wireless Transceivers System:
    • Architectures for specific system(DECT/802.15.6(body area network))
      • Heterodyne Architectures
      • Homodyne (or direct conversion)
      • MIMO application to encryption.
    • Translation of system specs transistors specs: DECT/802.15.6(body area network)
    • Receiver architectures: superheterodyne, direct conversion etc
    • Transmitter architectures: heterodyne, frequency translation architectures, polyphase. Application for body area network transmitter
  2. Device and transistor models, MOS, bipolar, millimeter wave etc.
  3. Low noise amplifiers (wideband/narrowband topology)
  4. Mixers (Gilbert/passive architecture)
  5. Power amplifiers (class A/B/C)
  6. Oscillators and dividers: LC tank oscillators (Colpitts), ring oscillators etc.; dual modulus divider
  7. Phase locked loops (integer-N/fractional-N/dual loop)
  8. A/D and D/A converters: oversampled A/D converters/sigma-delta modulators

Primary reference

VLSI for Wireless Communications, Second edition, Bosco Leung, Springer-Verlag, 2011.

Secondary References

  1. Millimeter-Wave Integrated Circuits, Eoin Carey, Sverre Lidholm, Springer-Verlag, 2005.
  2. MMIC Design, I. Robertson, IEE, Short Run Press, 1995
  3. Microwave transistor amplifiers, analysis and design, G. Gonzalez, Prentice Hall, Second edition, 1984
  4. Modern antenna handbook (MIMO application), C. Balanis, Wiley, 2008
  5. Analysis and Design of Analog Integrated Circuits, Gray, Meyer, Hurst, Lewis, Fifth Edition, Wiley, 2008
  6. The design of CMOS radio frequency integrated circuits, Second edition, T. Lee, Cambridge Press 2004
  7. RF microelectronics, Second edition, B. Razavi, Prentice Hall, 2011

Tentative Marking Schemes

Homework: 15%-30%
Project: 20%-35%
Final: 50%