A low-power high-performance SiGe BiCMOS 802.11a/b/g transceiver IC for cellular and Bluetooth co-existence applications

This paper describes a low-power, high-performance WLAN 802.11 a/b/g radio transceiver optimized for mobile applications and co-existence with on-board cellular and Bluetooth systems. The direct conversion architecture is optimized to achieve uncompromised RF performance at low power. A key transceiver requirement is a sensitivity of -77dBm (at the LNA input) in the presence of a GSM 1900 transmitter interferer while in 54Mb/s OFDM mode. The receiver chain achieves a NF of 2.8/3.2dB, consuming 168/185mW at 2.8V for the 2.4/5GHz bands respectively. Signal loopback and transmit power detection techniques are used in conjunction with the baseband modem processor to calibrate the transmitter LO leakage and the transceiver I/Q imbalances. Fabricated in a 70GHz f_T 0.25μm SiGe BiCMOS technology for system-in-package (SiP) use, the dual-band, tri-mode transceiver occupies only 4.6mm².