RF/Microwave Circuit Design for Wireless Applications

Rating:
Summary: I recommend this book highly
Review: (relayed from Dr. R. Schalter, Germany) While most two-way radio applications during the past years have been located in the frequency range of 150 MHz to 450 MHz (2 m to 70 cm), the demand for multichannel applications has pushed up both the operating frequency and the number of users per channel. Standard applications involves narrowband frequency modulation (NBFM), and therefore, the linearity and efficiency of the transmitter portion was less of a problem. The class C operation for FM provided a higher efficiency and the blocking of the adjacent channel was mostly determined by the receiver's local oscillator. Today's wireless applications are using combinations of the time-division multiplex, code-division multiplex and other complex waveforms where the requirements for linearity of the transmitter are much more stringent, while the digital coding of the transmitter signals make the design of the receiver much easier as the signal density is not very high. Traditional books did a very good job of describing these single-signal operations, while to look into all the complicated details of wireless applications, one had to find a collection of many recently published papers. I am, therefore, happy to applaud the recent book by Ulrich L. Rohde and David P. Newkirk, which is the only comprehensive study guide that covers all necessary topics very well.

After the introduction to wireless systems and their testing in Chapter 1, the authors in Chapter 2 provide an updated overview of current active designs neatly separating diodes, bipolar transistors, FETs, and even addressing parameter extractions. Most manufacturers published only limited information on the semiconductor devices and yet small power consumption and high linearity are the key issues.

Building upon this, Chapter 3 provides a variety of topics about the amplifier design, both small and large signal, and a wealth of information as to critical design.

Chapter 4, Mixer Design, is extremely well organized and a lot of forgotten information is being made available again. As in the previous chapters, we find a good balance between mathematical and practical applications.

Chapter 5, Oscillators, is probably Rohde's pet area, providing the most comprehensive summary of oscillator designs, and many of his presentations from international conferences are reflected in this. It also sheds light on both linear and nonlinear oscillator analysis. This chapter has good theoretical information for everybody.

Chapter 6, which deals with wireless synthesizers, reviews the required design procedures and lists many off-the-shelf IC-built synthesizers, as well as very high performance frequency synthesizers. The latest fractional-N-division synthesizer theory receives a detailed discussion.

The two appendices are custom tailored to obtain information about microwave transistors and are a welcomed addition to the previous chapters. Their value lies in the insight given on how to characterize modern semiconductors.

I have spent many hours with this book and its reading was similar to starting with a high tension mystery novel and it became almost impossible to put down.

I recommend this book highly to anyone who enjoys modern technology. It has become my favorite.

Dr. Robert Schalter Munich, Germany

Rating:
Summary: RF/Microwave Circuit Design for Wireless Applications
Review: No single text could possible address all of the complexities of RF design for wireless systems, but RF/Microwave Circuit Design for Wireless Applications comes close. The text covers the design and specification of all major RF portions in a wireless system. The book contains only six chapters and two appendices, but these are information-packed chapters that in essence could serve as the basis for separate multi-day technical workshops.

Other reviews (July 2000 Microwaves & RF and June 2000 Wireless Systems Design, among others) have provided broad overviews of the book's contents. Highlights not specifically mentioned in these general reviews include:

Chapter 1 (Introduction to Wireless Circuit Design): Impact of propagation on system performance (multi-pass) and design; analyses of large signal handling; testing requirements for wireless systems.

Chapter 2 (Models for Active Devices): Calculation of IMD contributed by tuning diodes; overview of current BJT technologies; FET families and the key advantages and disadvantages of various FET technologies and comparison to SiGe transistors.

Chapter 3 (Amplifier Design with BJTs and FETs: Small signal to power amplifier design, including the calculation of heatsink requirements and evaluation of adjacent-channel power ratio (ACPR) and stability performance and includes the use of distributed elements. This is by far the largest chapter in the book, essentially equaling the information found in some texts dedicated to amplifier design.

Chapter 4 (Mixer Design): Extensive CAD analysis of passive and active mixer topologies, with many applications.

Chapter 5 (RF/Wireless Oscillators): Discrete and RFIC oscillator circuits with many examples; oscillator noise reduction through active noise feedback.

Chapter 6 (Wireless Synthesizers): Fractional-N applications and principles, including the importance of reference purity and techniques for suppressing discrete spurious outputs.

In terms of information per dollar, the book represents a real value. Many texts are available on various aspects of wireless RF engineering, usually on narrowly defined topics. RF/Microwave Circuit Design for Wireless Applications is the only text that provides a complete education for wireless circuit designers, by covering wireless RF engineering from semiconductor through system levels. It can be used on many different levels, from basic tutorial to advanced design concepts, depending upon the background of the reader. The book should be particularly useful for those designers tasked with learning more about an unfamiliar portion of the RF signal chain, such as antenna designers who need to know more about low-noise amplifiers.

Rating:
Summary: Real World Simulation
Review: RF/Microwave Circuit Design for Wireless Applications

Reviewer: R Conrad from Connecticut, USA

RF/Microwave Circuit Design for Wireless Applications is a veritable encyclopedia for those new to the field of circuit design for wireless applications. The text introduces the reader to the impact of real world operating conditions on wireless system performance as a prelude to thorough reviews of active and passive devices and applications.

The book includes many illustrations of circuits typically found in wireless systems. The text provides proven design techniques and practical circuit-design examples based on a family of linear and nonlinear computer-aided-design (CAD) tools from Ansoft Cop. (Pittsburgh, PA).

One of the many highlights of the book is a software simulation example that accurately predicts the "real world" performance of a QPSK power amplifier (on pages 424 and 425). In addition, the treatment of push-pull power amplifier design and the analysis and application of 3-dB hybrids and Wilkinson dividers and combiners couplers are presented thoroughly and professionally.

In light of the quality of this book, I found the review titled "form without content" troubling. The author appears to resent the success of Dr. Rohde's fine career and many well-written books. It is also difficult to understand how 18 of 20 individuals found such a negative and unconstructive review helpful. More likely, the author of that negative review was his/her own best reader, and was simply responding to his or her own review in an attempt to asperse the author. Finally, one of the on-line purchasers of the book was one of the original founders of Sciteq Electronics (San Diego, CA), a firm associated with the development of the direct digital synthesizer (DDS). This alone is a strong testimony to the value of the book.

Rating:
Summary: RF/Microwave Circuit Design for Wireless Applications
Review: The 900+ pages of this new book by Ulrich L. Rohde and David P. Newkirk covers a wide range of topics related to its title. It should serve as a valuable reference to all engineers working in the field of wireless systems and its related components. It also provides extensive sets of relevant up-to-date references and related patents.

The book begins with a quick overview of the radio channel and the various modulation schemes used in wireless systems, providing useful definitions of commonly used terminology. Then, switching from system level, the authors quickly progress to components and building block discussions for the rest of the book.

A detailed review of active device models (large signal and small) for various diodes, bipolar and Si and GaAs field-effect transistors are followed by SPICE-, and noise-parameter extractions, including a new modeling approach for low-voltage operation.

The most extensive chapter (260 pages) of the book deals with design considerations of RF/MW linear, low-noise, high gain and (nonlinear) power amplifiers. Several illustrative examples are given, including a wide range of commercially available device and amplifier datasheets. This chapter also covers AGC amplifiers and voltage-tuned filters.

The last three chapters cover mixers, oscillators and synthesizers and their related CAD methodologies. The Ansoft Serenade programs is used for all illustrative examples. The book concludes with two Appendixes: one discussing HBT models, parameter extraction and validation and another on multiharmonic load-pull techniques and their applications in power amplifier and frequency multiplier designs.

Rating:
Summary: RF/Microwave Circuit Design for Wireless Applications
Review: The 900+ pages of this new book by Ulrich L. Rohde and David P. Newkirk covers a wide range of topics related to its title. It should serve as a valuable reference to all engineers working in the field of wireless systems and its related components. It also provides extensive sets of relevant up-to-date references and related patents.

The book begins with a quick overview of the radio channel and the various modulation schemes used in wireless systems, providing useful definitions of commonly used terminology. Then, switching from system level, the authors quickly progress to components and building block discussions for the rest of the book.

A detailed review of active device models (large signal and small) for various diodes, bipolar and Si and GaAs field-effect transistors are followed by SPICE-, and noise-parameter extractions, including a new modeling approach for low-voltage operation.

The most extensive chapter (260 pages) of the book deals with design considerations of RF/MW linear, low-noise, high gain and (nonlinear) power amplifiers. Several illustrative examples are given, including a wide range of commercially available device and amplifier datasheets. This chapter also covers AGC amplifiers and voltage-tuned filters.

The last three chapters cover mixers, oscillators and synthesizers and their related CAD methodologies. The Ansoft Serenade programs is used for all illustrative examples. The book concludes with two Appendixes: one discussing HBT models, parameter extraction and validation and another on multiharmonic load-pull techniques and their applications in power amplifier and frequency multiplier designs.

Rating:
Summary: form without content
Review: This is the type of book commonly published by Artech House or IEEE Press. It is as if a person who was highly skilled in writing liberal arts prose finds a file cabinet abandoned by a retired engineering manager. The file cabinet is filled with a lifetime eclectic collection of magazine articles, photo copies of sections of books, and reports from subordinates, all of which were never read by the manager because of time restraints. The liberal arts person shuffles the contents together into a book without really understanding what is written. This book is strewn with tables and illustrations which are never referenced in the text. Most of the illustrations are multiple generation photocopies. Equations contain undefined terms. Critical design issues are passed over with one sentence while there is a several page mathematical derivation of the DC output impedance of a BJT. The author infers that it is not necessary to understand what you do as long as you can get the answer from a CAD program. The book perpetuates the urban legend that Gilbert invented a mixer. This topology goes back to at least 1920 and had been implemented with relays, vacuum tubes, specialized vacuum tubes, and discrete transistors. The author references Gilbert's paper which references the discrete transistor version as prior art and then shows how to make a pre-distortion circuit to add to this mixer to obtain a four quadrant linear multiplier. So much for not reading your references. Finally, the book does not explain anything very clearly. people who are not already skilled in RF will not gain any design ability from this book. They will however get a false sense of skill level that will allow them to do basic, simple designs, but not designs that push technology. That is, they could do a day late dollar short design of consumer products, but not military products.

Rating:
Summary: form without content
Review: This is the type of book commonly published by Artech House or IEEE Press. It is as if a person who was highly skilled in writing liberal arts prose finds a file cabinet abandoned by a retired engineering manager. The file cabinet is filled with a lifetime eclectic collection of magazine articles, photo copies of sections of books, and reports from subordinates, all of which were never read by the manager because of time restraints. The liberal arts person shuffles the contents together into a book without really understanding what is written. This book is strewn with tables and illustrations which are never referenced in the text. Most of the illustrations are multiple generation photocopies. Equations contain undefined terms. Critical design issues are passed over with one sentence while there is a several page mathematical derivation of the DC output impedance of a BJT. The author infers that it is not necessary to understand what you do as long as you can get the answer from a CAD program. The book perpetuates the urban legend that Gilbert invented a mixer. This topology goes back to at least 1920 and had been implemented with relays, vacuum tubes, specialized vacuum tubes, and discrete transistors. The author references Gilbert's paper which references the discrete transistor version as prior art and then shows how to make a pre-distortion circuit to add to this mixer to obtain a four quadrant linear multiplier. So much for not reading your references. Finally, the book does not explain anything very clearly. people who are not already skilled in RF will not gain any design ability from this book. They will however get a false sense of skill level that will allow them to do basic, simple designs, but not designs that push technology. That is, they could do a day late dollar short design of consumer products, but not military products.