Tackling 4G challenges with "TACT" - Design and optimization of 4G radio receivers with a transceiver architecture comparison tool (TACT)

Current integration trends imposed by the market are pushing toward the software radio paradigm. 4G radio receivers, where different wireless standards converge, make RF engineers face harder and harder challenges. Electronic design automation (EDA) tools play an increasing role in the design and verification of wireless system. This article presents a transceiver architecture comparison tool (TACT) which is a hierarchical, user-friendly, Matlab-based tool. It automates the design-space exploration procedure for 4G (fourth generation) wireless receivers. An example that considers a multistandard wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA)/wireless local area network (WLAN) receiver was also presented to illustrate the capabilities of TACT