"RF-SoC": Technology Enablers and Current Design Trends for Highly Integrated Wireless RF IC Transceivers

The integration level of RFICs has exhibited dramatic progress during the last decade. For example, Si-based single-chip GSM/GPRS/DCS/PCS, WLAN, Bluetooth and DECT transceivers have all been reported in the past few years. The next major milestone for integration will be the single-chip RF-system-on-a-chip (i.e. "RF-SoC") product that supports multi-band multi-standard cellular standards (such as UMTS/GSM/GPRS/CDMA2000) with the wireless personal-area-network (PAN) and wireless-local-area-network (WLAN) features. To achieve this high level of RFIC integration, one has to choose radio circuit architectures that require a minimal number of external components, together with a judicious selection of the IC technology for implementation. Recent design trends on highly integrated wireless RFIC transceivers are reviewed, with emphasis on the RF-SoC performance trade-offs impacted by the chip-level architectural selection and the device-level technology choice. The major roadblocks to single-chip radio RFIC designs are briefly discussed.