Often it seems that small analog circuits are the most difficult to design. Given a challenging set of specifications, a little circuit like a low noise amplifier (LNA) can be more difficult to design than a much larger ‘run of the mill’ analog-to-digital converter (ADC). And to get a really good, big analog circuits (e.g. ADCs) we have to do a good job implementing the little sub-circuits.

Of late, little analog circuits and analog design as well, have enjoyed a renaissance. Part of this is due to the explosive growth in portable wireless systems. Advances in semiconductor technology have enabled the integrations of 10s of millions of transistors on a single die. However it turns out that the difficult part is adding those little analog circuits, like cell phone radios, to those big mostly digital ICs.

In this class we focus on those little analog circuits (LNAs, Mixers VCOs etc). We try to get an analytical understanding of how they work, and understand key parameters like distortion and noise. We also try get an intuitive understanding of how these circuits work. Some of the key issues are biasing, noise and distortion. These topics and more are discussed during the this course.

This class includes a design project.

CLASS PROJECT: The Winter 2003 project involved the design of one of the following: GPS Synthesizer; Super-regenerative RF Front End; GPS Front End; or a 2.4GHz Quadrature VCO.

Click here to see class projects, including the winning project (A 1.573-GHz Low Power, Wide Locking Range GPS Frequency Synthesizer in 0.18-µm CMOS) from Amar Basu, Jenkin Chan and Vivian Lee.