The widespread use of wireless devices that we have recently been witnessing, such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, and wirelessly accessible devices in general, is causing an unprecedented growth in the required amount of the wireless radio spectrum. On the other hand, the spectrum resource has, for the last several decades,...
Modern wireless System-on-Chips (SoCs), such as mobile handsets, sensor networks, and mm-wave systems, integrate an entire RF system on a single CMOS chip. Such highly complex systems require significant on-chip digital signal processing to help improve the performance of highly sensitive analog/RF components. The IC
market being competitive, the ability...
The recent demand for wireless transceivers has created a flurry of research into nontraditional
receiver architectures. The homodyne receiver, because of its high degree of
integration, low complexity and low power consumption, has surfaced a desirable alternative
to the well-known heterodyne receiver. However, distortions such as gain and phase
imbalance...
Radio frequency (RF) power amplifiers (PA) are the most power consuming components of a mobile communications unit. They are used to convert the DC power from the battery into RF power delivered to the antenna. In a cell phone it becomes very important to use highly efficient power amplifiers, such...
Several hardware-based security improvements to Near Field Communication (NFC) and Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) systems are developed and presented. The improvements are intended to be used in conjunction with software encryption to ensure robust security. Two main implementations for a more secure NFC or RFID system are presented: a jamming system,...
Stock loss and out-of-stocks are outcomes of poorly designed inventory management systems and can lead to significant revenue losses. Inventory management systems (IMS) based on radio frequency identification (RFID) have the potential to minimize these losses if they are properly designed and deployed. However, the placement of RFID readers to...
In high-frequency circuit design, performance is often limited by the quality of the passive components available for a particular process. Specifically, spiral inductors can be a major bottle-neck for Voltage-Controlled Oscillators (VCOs), Low-Noise Amplifiers (LNAs), mixers, etc. For designers to correctly optimize a circuit using a spiral inductor, several frequency-domain...
This work focusses on the modeling and the development of efficient coupled simulation techniques for MEMS based RF oscillators. High-level models for MEMS based varactors have been discussed and their accuracy issues are identified, based on comparisons with numerical simulations. A faster simulation approach based on the time-domain shooting method...