Generation of multicarrier complex lowpass models of RF ICs

The design of transceivers for wireless digital telecommunications is subject to severe requirements on cost and power consumption. This is a challenge for the design of RF front-end blocks that degrade the bit-error-rate of a telecommunication link. This paper describes a technique to generate accurate high-level models for the RF front-end blocks. The models take into account the nonlinear behavior as a function of frequency. The accuracy of the models is higher than classical complex equivalent models since out-of-band distortion is taken into account. The technique, that is verified with a low-noise amplifier design for 5 GHz WLAN, yields an important gain in simulation efficiency of RF ICs, compared to circuit-level simulations.