Design and Analysis of Integrated RF Front-end Transceiver System Using Printed Circuit Technology for 5 GHz Wireless Communication Applications

The wireless market is developing very fast today with a steadily increasing number of users all around the world. An increasing number of users and the constant need for higher and higher data rates have led to an increasing number of emerging wireless communication standards. As a result there is a huge demand for flexible and low-cost radio architectures for portable applications. Modern radio transceivers have to support several different standards. Moving towards multi-standard radio, a high level of integration becomes a necessity and only can be accomplished by new improved radio architectures and full utilization of technology scaling. A radio frequency (RF) front-end system has been designed, integrated and fabricated using printed circuit board (PCB). The system consists of single-pole double-throw (SPDT) transmitter/receiver (T/R) switch with PIN diode, a low noise amplifier (LNA), a power amplifier (PA) and other microwave components. The components and sub-circuits based upon the transmission line theory have been utilized for the system design. All the sub-circuits and the entire system have been evaluated using a commercial software. The full design has been fabricated and measured using network analyzer. It is shown that RF front-end system can be integrated in a PCB utilizing a conventional PCB process. This system integration technique provides not only low cost but also high performance because of the elimination of parasitic associated with lumped components in a conventional design. KeywordsRF front-end; SPDT; LNA; PA; integrated transceiver system; wireless communication applications.