RF CMOS Building Blocks

Summary

For a fully-integrated CMOS multi-standard receiver, RF circuits are the most challenging parts. The relatively low performance of CMOS RF circuits compared with their Bipolar counterpart is due to both the low g_m of transistors and the lack of accurate modeling for MOS transistors and passive components, e.g. on-chip inductors. Thus smart design techniques at both the circuit and system levels are necessary. In this chapter,we briefly discussed the design issues of front-end LNAs and the frequency synthesizer design for multi-standard applications. A novel design approach for LNAs and a high-speed prescaler using CMOS single-ended DFF operating up to 2.5GHz are presented.