Towards fully integrated wideband transceivers: fundamental challenges, solutions and future

Design considerations of a generic wideband communication system differ significantly from its narrowband counterpart. In a wideband system, intermodulation distortion increases significantly, as the signal propagates through various active stages of RF/analog signal processing blocks. Thus, in contrary to the narrowband approach, it requires careful optimization of noise and linearity for a given power consumption. Many of these systems today utilize multicarrier modulation approach to provide robustness for dynamic wireless environment. Multicarrier modulation also aids the development of direct conversion transceivers leading to further optimization of signal processing algorithms at the baseband. In this paper, we would illustrate the architectural trade-off and design consideration of fully integrated direct conversion transceivers in standard silicon based processes. Fundamental considerations of power, linearity, effect of out-of-band blockers, coexistence with other standards would be addressed for a direct conversion UWB transceiver based on multi-band OFDM approach.