Software Defined Radio

Vision or

Reality

Dept. Electrical Engineering, Linkoping University, Sweden. Email:christer@isy.liu.se

Christer Svensson, Fellow IEEE.

Abstract

REFERENCES
Challanges and Solutions ", in Radio Design in Nanometer Technologies, eds. M Ismail and D. Rodriguez de Llera Gonzalez, Springer, Oct. 2006. [2] D. Liu, A. Nilsson and E. Tell, "Programmable Baseband Processors", in Radio Design in Nanometer Technologies, eds. M Ismail and D. Rodriguez de Llera Gonzalez, Springer, Oct. 2006. [3] S. Andersson and C. Svensson, A 750MHz to 3GHz Tunable Narrowband Low-Noise Amplifier, Proc. of the NORCHIP 2005 Conference, pp. 8-11, Nov. 2005. [4] R. Ramzan, S. Andersson, J. Dabrowski and C. Svensson, "A 1.4V, 25mW Inductorless Wideband LNA in 0.13,um CMOS", IEEE International Solid-State Circuit Conference, San Francisco, Feb. 11-15, 2007. [5] D. Jakonis, et. al., A 2.4-GHz RF Sampling Receiver Front-End in 0.18jum CMOS, IEEE Journal Solid-State Circuits, vol. 40, pp. 1265-1277, June 2005. [6] S. Andersson, J Konopacki, J. Dabrowski and C. Svensson, "SC-filter for RF Sampling and Downconversion with Wideband Image Rejection", Journal ofAnalog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing, vol. 49, pp. 115-122, Oct. 2006. [7] S. Andersson, J. Konopacki, J. Dabrowski and C. Svensson, "Noise Analysis and Noise Estimation of an RF-Sampling Front-End using an SC Decimation Filter", Proc. of the MIXDES 2006 Conference, pp. 343-348, June 2006. [8] A. Blad, C. Svensson, H. Johansson and S. Andersson, "A RF Sampling Radio Frontend Based on ZA-Conversion ", This conference. [9] E. Tell, A. Nilsson and C. Svensson, "Silicon IP for Programmable Baseband Processing", IP-SoC-2006 Conference, Grenoble, Dec. 6-7, 2006.

The idea of software defined radio, that is the vision of a generic hardware which can be programmed to manage any radio standards, is introduced. The radio challenge and the resulting very tough requirements on the receiver are discussed. Different options to the software defined radio architecture are described and practical implementations of different elements of the radio architecture are presented. An experimental widely tuneable LNA for the frequency range 0.75-3GHz is presented. A broadband LNA for the frequency range 1-7GHz is described together with experimental results. Wideband sampling receivers, aimed for the 2.4 and 5.2GHz frequency bands and 20MHz bandwidth are presented together with some measured results. Another alternative, a direct EA-conversion receiver is proposed. Finally, a flexible solution to the digital baseband implementation is described. This solution is a fully programmable DSP, specially adapted to baseband processing. It is shown that this processor saves considerable silicon area and shows no power penalty compared to traditional fixed solutions. In conclusion it is found that software defined radio is quite close to reality today.

[1] C. Svensson and S. Andersson, "Software Defined Radio: Vision,

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