Analog IC Technologies for Future Wireless Systems

The analog IC technology, might sound old-fashioned, is still important for the future wireless systems such as 4G cellular phone systems, broadband wireless networkings, and wireless sensor networkings. The analog features and issues of the scaled CMOS transistor, the basic issue and the technology trend for the ADC as an important building block of wires systems, and the feature of the digital RF architecture proposed recently are reviewed and discussed. Higher speed and lower power consumption are expected for low SNR systems along with the further technology scaling. However, the high SNR system is not realized easily due to a decrease of signal voltage. One of the important technology trends is the digitalization of RF signal to realize the system flexibility, robustness, area shrinking, and TAT shortening. key words: analog circuit, integrated circuit, wireless system, CMOS, analog to digital converter, radio frequency