A 0.28µm CMOS Bluetooth Frequency Synthesizer for Integration with a Bluetooth SOC Reference Platform

Bluetooth is a communications standard targeting shortrange wireless communications with data rates of 1Mb/s at 10m distance. To encourage Canadian universities to pursue this commercially promising standard the Canadian Microelectronics Corporation is providing the intellectual property for a Bluetooth SOC Reference Platform. This platform does not currently include an RF transceiver core. This work describes a research effort made at the University of Calgary to build a compatible RF transceiver core in a CMOS 0.18 m process. A brief Bluetooth specification translation process to derive the frequency synthesizer system specifications is presented. A pilot PCB Bluetooth frequency synthesizer is presented together with specific measurements made at NEWT, TRLabs’ new test and measurement facility. Finally, a fully integrated Bluetooth frequency synthesizer implemented in a CMOS 0.18 m process is presented.