ISSCC 2004 / SESSION 10 / CELLULAR SYSTEMS AND BUILDING BLOCKS / 10.1 10.1 Digital-IF WCDMA Handset Transmitter IC in 0.25μm SiGe BiCMOS

The wireless industry has evolved to enable high bit-rate communications, and the WCDMA system has emerged as a 3G standard. There is enormous pressure to reduce the size, cost, and power consumption of the mobile phone. While digital circuits have experienced tremendous power saving with the progress of deep sub-micron processes, the analog/RF sections remain the bottleneck in reducing the dc power consumption. This work focuses on the implementation of a highly integrated, low-power WCDMA transmitter IC (TxIC) that addresses this problem, through a combination of architecture and circuit innovations.