Hierarchical implementation of a wireless communications system

Due to the character of the original source materials and the nature of batch digitization, quality control issues may be present in this document. Please report any quality issues you encounter to digital@library.tamu.edu, referencing the URI of the item.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 423-440).Issued also on microfiche from Lange Micrographics.Personal communications devices, such as the cellular phone, currently dominate the field of wireless communications. Product specifications such as weight, battery life, and transmission capacity pertain to consumer and marketing requirements, but do not readily suggest engineering requirements such as communications protocols, component requirements, and integrated circuit techniques. During the design and implementation phases of large mixed-signal integrated circuit systems, engineers need a method to determine these requirements and verify proper system performance without having to perform several iterations of the expensive integrated circuit fabrication process. The purpose of this thesis is to illustrate a strategy for implementing large mixed-signal systems using a hierarchical modeling approach that connects the high-level system design to the low-level transistor design. This work describes the design and implementation of portions of a transceiver similar to that used in the Personal Communications System (PCS). Several components of the transceiver have been fully implemented, sent for fabrication, and subsequently tested. The technique used to design and implement the transceiver employs top-down design and three levels of modeling to form a complete hierarchical implementation. Behavioral modeling is used at the system-level. The second level of modeling adopts digital and analog macromodeling for individual components. Transistor-level circuit simulators and device models are used in the lowest level of modeling. Implementation of large mixed-signal systems, such as wireless communications devices, is likely to result in single-chip solutions in the near future. As a result, design and implementation techniques must be devised which allow the designer to accurately and inexpensively determine and optimize transistor-level circuits from system requirements. The results of this work show that the techniques presented in this thesis can assist the mixed-signal system designer in determining engineering requirements and verifying proper system operation