IC chip level low noise technology for high speed and high quality telecommunication systems

Single chip integration of RF frontend and digital backend circuits is an obvious solution to accommodate high sensitivity and selectivity of analogue RF chains, and the high speed and large data bandwidth digital processing in an RF IC for the coming wireless communication systems including long-term evolution-advanced (LTE-A) system. This paper firstly emphasizes the necessity to suppress intra electromagnetic coupling from digital to RF circuits within the bandwidth of wireless channels. Our approach to suppress IC chip level RF noise coupling and to estimate their impact on system-level performance of wireless communication lead to major achievements on; (a)development of an in-system diagnosis platform of RF ICs consisting of a silicon emulator of on-chip interferers and a system-level RF performance simulator, (b)measurement-based substrate noise coupling analysis, measurement-based magnetic air coupling analysis, (c)an unique ferromagnetic on-chip countermeasure, and (d)board level coupling analysis in LTE receiver communication band. Their impacts on future telecommunication systems are estimated to conclude this work.