Baseband analog front-end and digital back-end for reconfigurable multi-standard terminals

Multimedia applications are driving wireless network operators to add high-speed data services such as EDGE (E-GPRS), WCDMA (UMTS) and WLAN (IEEE 802.11a,b,g) to the existing network. This creates the need for multi-mode cellular handsets that support a wide range of communication standards, each with a different RF frequency, signal bandwidth, modulation scheme, etc. This in turn generates several design challenges for the analog and digital building blocks of the physical layer. In addition to the above mentioned protocols, mobile devices often include Bluetooth, GPS, FM-radio and TV services that can work concurrently with data and voice communication. Multi-mode, multi-band, and multi-standard mobile terminals must satisfy all these different requirements. Sharing and/or switching transceiver building blocks in these handsets is mandatory in order to extend battery life and/or to reduce cost. Only adaptive circuits that are able to reconfigure themselves within the handover time can meet the design requirements of a single receiver or transmitter covering all the different standards while ensuring seamless inter-operability. This paper presents analog and digital base-band circuits that are able to support GSM (with EDGE), WCDMA (UMTS), WLAN and Bluetooth using reconfigurable building blocks. The blocks can trade off power consumption for performance on the fly, depending on the standard to be supported and the required QoS (Quality of Service) level.