Bondwire-antenna and duplexer-less LNA/PA design for wireless transceivers

This paper presents the design of a bondwire antenna with detailed equations showing the derivation of the radiated power, radiation pattern, and the transmitter to receiver link-budget for a bondwire-antenna for short-range radio communications in the 6.5 GHz frequency range. The bondwire antenna is then used to design a high-gain, narrowband duplexer-less LNA/PA blocks for a transceiver with the LNA input and PA output automatically matched to the antenna. Besides the inductive bondwire antenna, the LNA and PA are designed to be inductor-less, thus saving the silicon chip area. The transceiver range is calculated to be about 2.27 m, ideal for applications such as biomedical monitoring equipment or RFID tags. Both front end blocks are designed with low-power, low cost and high yield considerations for production in industry. The inductorless LNA parameters at 6.5 GHz are S21 of 15 dB for the LNA and 7 dB for the PA, NF of 5.7 dB for the LNA, S11 and S22 less than -10 dB, with 9.8 mW for TX and 14.6 mW for RX power consumption for 1.2 V supply.