EEE 6374

Radio Frequency Circuits and

Systems
Notes#10 (RF System Specifications)
Prof. Jenshan Lin
University of Florida
1 2/19/2010 2010 Jenshan Lin
Channel
Propagating medium or electromagnetic path connecting
transmitter and receiver
2
Building a transmitter
Large signal.
Cannot interfere with other radio systems!
TX Tx output
Other radio
For transmitter design,
a clean output spectrum is the key.
RX
Also need to meet output power requirement and
get the efficiency as high as possible.
3
Building a receiver
RX
Very weak signal at RX antenna.
To process the signal at baseband, we need large signal
while trying to maintain the best signal-to-noise ratio.
Channel
TX
Noise
signal
going through RF receiver
For receiver design, S/N or S/(N+I)
is the key.
Whats wrong here?
4
SNR (Signal-to-noise ratio)
power noise
power signal
SNR =
N
S
S
N
Power ratio
SNR will be degraded due to
Signal loss
Noise increase
Interference
Degradation is measured by Noise Figure (NF)
out
in
SNR
SNR
output at SNR
input at SNR
NF =
5
An example of RF system
LO
(Synthesizer,
PLO, DRO)
BPF BPF
BPF BPF Mixer
Mixer LNA AGC
IF AMP
IF
and/or
Base-
band
Driver
HPA
Switch
Antenna
6
Non-Ideal RF Component
noisy and nonlinear
P
in
P
out
P
in
(dBm)
P
o
u
t

(
d
B
m
)
1dB
P
1dB
NF
Noise floor @ input = (kTB)
dBm
Noise floor
@ output
= (GkTB)
dBm
+(NF)
dB
P
1dB, in
P
1dB, out
Gain
compression
7
k: Boltzmanns constant
= 1.38x10
-23
J/K
T: absolute temperature
B: bandwidth
3rd Order Intermodulation
f
A
f
B
2f
B
- f
A
f
B
+ f
A
2f
A
- f
B
f
B
- f
A
Filter Bandwidth
2nd order 2nd order
3rd order 3rd order
nonlinear amp
f
A
f
B
?
1st order
8
IP3
noisy and nonlinear
P
in
P
out
P
in
(dBm)
P
o
u
t

(
d
B
m
) f
A
, f
B
2f
A
-f
B
,
2f
B
-f
A
IP3
3rd order
Intercept Point
NF
Input noise floor = kTB
Output noise floor
IIP3
OIP3
9
Ideal Receiver
Assuming we have transceivers with perfect
components:
Noiseless linear amplifiers (NF=0dB, IIP3=infinity).
Noiseless linear mixers which generate the correct
mixing product you want and has no image, no spurs.
Perfect frequency source without phase noise or jitter.
Lossless filters with infinite out-of-band rejection and
extremely sharp roll-off.
No power consumption.
Then, designing a system would be so easy!
Unfortunately, none of the above is true.
Unrealistic wish list from system engineers
Thats why we need so many RFIC designers in
the world.
10
System Specifications
Ideal receivers/transmitters do not exist.
Now, you have built a non-ideal radio with non-
ideal components, how do you know if it meets
the specifications (specs)?
Where did the specs come from?
System specs came from standards documents.
Documents were developed and published by
standards organizations.
Examples:
ITU (International Telecommunication Union)
ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards
Institute)
TIA (Telecommunications Industry Association) (US)
11
System Specifications Example: GSM
Receiver sensitivity
* Published by ETSI
12
System Specifications Example: GSM
Transmitter output spectrum
* Published by ETSI
30kHz RBW
100kHz RBW
13
System Specifications Example: CDMA IS-95
Receiver sensitivity
* Published by TIA
14
* Published by TIA
Transmitter output spectrum
System Specifications Example: CDMA IS-95
fc Fc+900kHz
Fc+1.98MHz
0dBc
-42dBc
-54dBc
Measured in 30kHz RBW
15
System Specifications Example: DECT
16
Specifications: From system to component
System Component
Reference sensitivity level Rx NF
Reference interference level Rx LO phase noise
Receiver blocking characteristics
Rx LO phase noise, Rx spur from
mixer
Receiver intermodulation
characteristics
Rx 3
rd
order intermod
Receiver spurious emissions Rx radiated spur
Transmitter output power Power amplifier output
Output RF spectrum Modulator, Filter, PA
Spurious emissions Tx spur from mixer
17
Receiver Spurious Emissions
Remember the FM radio demo?
The FM receiver did cause interference!
In GSM Standard (GSM0505), 5.4 defines the
receiver spurious emissions.
18
Circuit Challenges
Rx LNA NF(sensitivity), IP3(intermod)
Rx Mixer IP3(intermod), Spur(blocking)
Rx VCO Phase noise(blocking), jitter(timing)
Tx Modulator Noise floor(output spectrum), Signal balance(I&Q)
Tx Mixer Spur(spurious emission)
Tx AGC Gain control(output power level)
Tx PA Linearity(output spectrum), efficiency
Duplexer
Insertion Loss(sensitivity), Rejection(spurious
emission)
Transceiver
Integration
Isolation/cross-talk, DC Power, Optimized
Partition.


Specifications: Circuit Design Issues
19
Link Budget
Link Budget is a term used to determine the
necessary parameters for a successful
transmission of a signal from a transmitter to a
receiver through space.
Includes TX PA output, gain and loss
throughout the system and the link, and the
S/N level required at receiver for desired bit
error rate (BER) of detection.
The most simple, basic system specifications
analysis to begin with only gain, loss, noise
(linear characteristics).
20
Link Budget Analysis Example
http://www.ardentech.com/ Download trial version or Lite-version
21
EIPR and ERP
Effective Isotropic Radiated Power, or
Equivalent Isotropic Radiated Power
EIRP = (power delivered to the antenna) X
(antenna gain)
in a given direction
ERP = Effective Radiated Power
= (power delivered to the antenna) X
(relative antenna gain with respect
to maximum directivity of
half-wavelength dipole)
ERP (dB) = EIRP (dB) 2.15dB
Same EIRP
22
Link Margin
Difference in dB between (E
b
/N
0
) received and (E
b
/N
0
) required
Bit energy
Noise power spectral density
Noise power per Hertz (noise energy)
dB required,
0
dB received,
0
dB
) ( ) (
N
E
N
E
M
b b
=
Varies from one system design to the other
Depends on modulation and coding schemes.
23
Bit Error Rate (BER)
0 0
0
, For P P x
N
E
E
b
s >
0
N
E
b 0
x
E
P
0
P
0.5
0
24
BER
BER
E
b
/N
0
(dB)
Orthogonal
Modulation
M-PSK
M=2
k
M-ary
M symbols
on signal space
k=# of bits/symbol
e.g., FSK
BW |
BW |
25
Orthogonal Modulation vs. M-PSK
For orthogonal modulation, as k increases, bit
error performance improves, with the trade-off
of bandwidth.
For M-PSK, as k increases, bit error
performance degrades, but bandwidth is also
reduced.
Line (1): P
B
vs. E
b
/N
0
with k (BW) fixed
Line (2): P
B
vs. BW with E
b
/N
0
fixed
Line (3): BW vs. E
b
/N
0
with P
B
fixed
26
Channel Capacity (Sklar pp. 385-389)
Shannon-Hartley Capacity Theorem
C: bits/s, BW: Hz
Theoretically possible to transmit data over such a
channel at any rate R, where RC, with an arbitrarily
small error probability by using a sufficiently
complicated coding scheme.
Shannon Limit (E
b
/N
0
=-1.59dB)
Below this limit, impossible to have error-free
communication at any data rate.
27
2
log 1
S
C BW
N
| |
= +
|
\ .
B
R
N
E
B N
T E
N
S
b b
=

=
0 0
Hertz in bandwidth
rate bit
1
bit per duration time
Hertz per power noise
bit per energy signal
power noise
power signal
0
=
= =
=
=
=
=
=
B
T
R
T
N
E
N
S
b
Bit Energy to Noise Ratio and Signal to Noise Ratio
R
B
N
S
B N
T S
N
E
b
=

=
/
0
Energy
RF
Digital baseband
28
Sensitivity
B
R
N
E
N
S
b
0
=
) log( 10 ) log( 10 ) / (
0
B R N E SNR
dB b dB
+ =
) log( 10 ) / ( dBm/Hz 174
) log( 10 dBm/Hz 174
) log( 10 ) (
) ( y Sensitivit
reqd dB, 0 dB
reqd dB, dB
reqd dB, dB dBm/Hz
reqd dB, dB dBm dBm
R N E NF
SNR B NF
SNR B NF kT
SNR NF kTB
b
+ + + =
+ + + =
+ + + =
+ + =
y Sensitivit ) ( ) (
required required
0

N
S
N
E
b
At T = 290K, kT = -174dBm/Hz
29
RF System Specifications
nonlinear system
P
in
P
out
P
in
(dBm)
P
o
u
t

(
d
B
m
)
f
A
, f
B
2f
A
-f
B
,
2f
B
-f
A
IP3
1dB
P
1dB
NF
Input noise floor = kTB
Output noise floor
SNR required
Sensitivity
MDS = Minimum Discernible Signal
30
Dynamic Range (DR)
P
in
(dBm)
P
o
u
t

(
d
B
m
)
IP3
P
1dB
IM3 = MDS
NF
MDS
Output
noise floor
SNR required
Sensitivity
3rd-order IM SFDR
Input noise floor
Usable DR
Max. IM3 allowed
There are many definitions for DR:
31
OIP3: Output 3rd-order Intercept Point
IIP3: Input 3rd-order Intercept Point
IMD: Inter-Modulation Distortion
IM3: 3rd-order Inter-Modulation product(dBm)
Summary of Acronyms
SFDR: Spurious Free Dynamic Range
NF: Noise Figure
SNR: Signal Noise Ratio
32
P1dB: 1dB compression Point
(Remember to specify either input or output!)