Instructor Orin Eliezer has developed a new course, Designing RF Transcievers in Extensively Digital SoC's which will be offered next May. Wireless consumer-market products, such as cellular transceivers, WiFi radios and Bluetooth devices, are being made available at ever reducing costs, while offering greater amounts of functionality and higher performance. This is made possible by increasing the level of integration and incorporating wireless transceivers with processors and other circuitry into a monolithic CMOS (SoC). In such environment, the transceiver architecture relies more heavily on digital logic and software algorithms when compared to traditional RF design approaches. This allows such SoC devices to leverage the benefits of the advanced nanometer CMOS fabrication processes while addressing the challenges associated with the implementation of RF functions in such environment. The constant introduction of new wireless standards, as well as the need to accommodate multiple standards in one platform, have made it necessary to adopt software-defined-radio (SDR) principles even in many consumer-market products.

This 3-day course presents the various aspects of this approach, including system-architecture, system and circuit level design methodologies, productization, and organizational aspects. The architectures covered include wideband/RF data converters, all-digital PLL, polar and quadrature digital transmitters, and digitally extensive techniques for efficiency enhancement in transmitters. Techniques for built-in calibration/compensation/testing in transceiver SoCs are highlighted as key elements in achieving cost effectiveness. Additionally, challenges associated with self-interference problems that are common in such integrated solutions, as well as techniques for the mitigation of self-interference effects, are also covered.