Design of IEEE 802.11a RF system for test with SoC platform

Abstract

Thanks for remarkable development of semiconductor process, it is possible to implement overall system with various and complex function on a chip. The early System-on-Chip (SoC) is defined to form CPU, memory, logic circuit, etc. on one chip. Recently, design and verification methodology for implementing system chip are included. In this paper, platform-based SoC, a practical approach method, is introduced as a pre-stage of real SoC and IEEE 802.11a WLAN RF system of 5.725 ~ 5.825 GHz frequency band, supposed to be loading on SoC platform, is designed. Performances of transmitter and receiver, required in IEEE 802.11a, are analyzed. Especially, in analyzing receiver``s noise, how much noise effects to overall system performance can be generated from subchannel intermodulation, PAPR, and subchannel reciprocal mixing noise, which are caused by OFDM signals. And, by calculating value of reciprocal mixing noise in receiver, required phase noise performance is also analyzed. In implementation, RF system is made to have dual function; one is possible to provide cooperation with baseband FPGA board, and another is independent operation of only RF system. Moreover, processes and skills in circuit and PCB design, crucial to determine performance of RF system, are explained in this paper. In this work, by designing IEEE 802.11a RF system for SoC platform test technology and knowledge for implementation and analysis would be ensured Besides, RF system is designed to be possible for cooperation of RF/baseband, thus it can be expected to be a guideline for development of SoC in the future.