Integrated multi-band and wideband reconfigurable wireless receivers

Restricted until 20 Oct. 2012. The thesis presents innovative solutions, both system level and block level, for the new trends in the wireless devices. Multi-functionality in wireless devices is becoming ever popular. It allows for concurrent and non-concurrent operation of different wireless standards and applications in a single wireless device. Today's mobile phones are not only used for voice communication, but also provide mobile entertainment, digital assistance, navigation and much more. Brute-force techniques to replicate blocks of transceivers for each standard and integrate them is not cost-effective. The thesis provides the implementation and theoretical understanding for multi-frequency blocks, specifically multi-frequency oscillator. A multi-frequency oscillator is capable of producing all the required center frequencies for all the standards either concurrently or non-concurrently. Special case of dual-frequency oscillator is considered which is composed of a single active device and a dual-resonant tank with resonances at f1 and f2. Detailed nonlinear analysis is provided to determine the stability of different modes of oscillations, i.e., oscillations at f1 or at f2 or simultaneously at f1 and f2, in a dual-frequency oscillator. Phase noise in dual-frequency oscillators is analyzed for the first time. Implementation and theory for arrays of multi-frequency oscillators in different configuration is also discussed.; Radio Frequency (RF) sensing and spectral analysis over multi-GHz frequency band benefits a vast range of applications including public safety, electronic warfare, instrumentation, and cognitive radio. Today's solutions require significant reduction in size, weight, and power consumption. For instance, the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Public Safety are interested in dismounted RF sensors from a few kHz to multi GHz that can be hand-carried by their personnel over long distances. Similarly, test and measurement industry is seeing a growing trend towards USB dongle-based instrumentation. A monolithic 100Hz-6GHz CMOS RF vector signal/spectrum analyzer, following a two-step up-down conversion heterodyne scheme with robustness to various wide-band interference scenarios, is presented. The chip enables wireless spectrum analysis in USB-dongle form-factor.; Fast-hopping wideband frequency synthesizer finds it use in applications in secure communication using Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS), electronic warfare where a rapidly hopping signal generator can effectively jam the enemies without getting detected or defeated, and Multi-band Orthogonal Frequency Domain Multiplexing (MB-OFDM) standard where the Local Oscillator (LO) must be able to hop from one sub-band to another within 10ns. Frequency synthesis methods using PLL or DDS are either too slow or power hungry, respectively. This thesis provides some of the methods of fast-hopping frequency synthesis that can result a low power and extremely fast frequency synthesis. Particularly, the implementation and design of a highly calibrated wideband VCO that can provide nanosecond fast hopping with fine resolution is discussed in detail.