Physical Design of Wireless Communications (EE585 or MT/PEP685)

Extends your understanding of physical design of wireless communication systems, emphasizing transmitter and receiver sections. You cover the design of directional, steerable antennas. Your study of carrier frequencies in wireless systems will lead you to appreciate semiconductor and other technologies. You review signal bandwidth to familiarize yourself with packaging of transmitter and receiver ends. You learn that at lower carrier frequencies-900 MHz to about 2-3 GHz-advanced IC technologies are preferred, given the maturity of the technology and density of analog and digital circuitry now integrated on a single IC. At higher frequencies, you will encounter limits to current silicon technologies, recognizing the importance of specialized semiconductor technologies, such as GaAs and SiGe circuits. You will understand difficulties in realizing high-accuracy analog/digital conversions at multi-GHz frequencies, allowing you to appreciate the need for analog circuitry. You will investigate analog/digital conversions at high sampling rates for digital processing at a receiver's front end, permitting the possible introduction of many new techniques. You discover that when front-end digital signal processing cannot be achieved, digital processing is employed at intermediate frequencies. You will understand contemporary digital signal processor technology by considering performance limitations of technologies and architectures.