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Link-Budget Analysis for Multistandard Receiver Architectures
By Jennifer Leonard and Mohammed Ismail

t is estimated that over 60% of circuit failure is due to poor simulation and modeling. Wireless receivers in particular present an especially complex area of circuit design. As device sizes shrink, creating integrated circuits (ICs) that work with the required accuracy becomes more difficult due to issues related to device physics. Additionally, receivers are part of an area referred to as mixed-signal design, meaning that both analog and digital circuitry will be on the same IC. This too presents many challenging issues, as the analog circuitry is highly sensitive to disruptions caused by the noisy digital circuitry. Therefore, accurate modeling and simulation is crucial in the design of wireless receivers to ensure the best possible operation of the fabricated IC. Through simulation and modeling a designer can determine if a receiver architecture will meet the required specifications and pinpoint possible problems before valuable time is spent developing the actual circuit. This article will present design issues for multistandard wireless receivers to give the reader an understanding of the challenges involved in link-budget analysis. TITAN (Toolbox for Integrated Transceiver ANalysis), a link-budget analysis tool developed at The Ohio State University Analog VLSI Laboratory, will be presented as an example of a tool for receiver simulation. To determine design performance, various requirements must be trans-

lated to model parameters. Among the requirements for receivers are noise floor (NF), second- and third-order distortion (IP2 and IP3, respectively), reciprocal mixing, and phase noise. In addition to requirements, the environment in which the receiver will be operating must also be taken into consideration. Namely, a profile of interfering signals (blockers) needs to be specified to assess the effect of the environment on the system. Lastly, signal specifications for the wireless standard(s) of interest need to be specified, including channel bandwidth and signal sensitivity. A multitude of tradeoffs exist between these parameters and the performance of the receiver, some of which can be explored via power-level simulations known as link-budget analysis. A popular method for performing link-budget analysis is Excel spreadsheets. Each block in the receiver is designated a separate column, while various performance metrics are calculated in each row. In this fashion, the designer can observe changes in the signal of interest as it propagates through the receiver. Additionally, charts and graphs can be quickly created from simulation results, allowing the designer to get a picture of the overall system behavior. Once a spreadsheet has been created, the designer needs to change only a few parameters (blocking profile, bandwidth, etc.) to simulate the receiver with a different standard. Blocks can be interchanged by switching the respec8755-3996/03/$17.00 2003 IEEE

tive columns, provided that formulas have been implemented in such a way that this is possible. While Excel has the advantage of ease of use and availability, it has definite shortcomings as a simulation tool. The most dangerous issue is formula integrity. As the designer interacts with the spreadsheet, moving columns and rows in order to test various architectures, formulas can be corrupted through cell referencing problems. Apart from integrity issues, Excel becomes unwieldy when it comes to multistandard analysis. Ideally, the designer should be able to specify a number of different blocking profiles for all standards to be tested. This is not possible using this method, as such a spreadsheet would be enormous and prone to errors. Optimization is an important part of receiver simulation and this is also impossible to achieve in Excel, as there are no capabilities for easily implementing such algorithms. While this method enjoys the advantage of low cost, it is prone to errors and cannot be easily manipulated for multistandard architectures. As an alternative, TITAN offers a graphical interface and encapsulated models to the designer, eliminating the possibility of formula corruption. The interface provides a more intuitive and sophisticated way of setting up the simulation and provides the designer with

M. Ismail and N. Tan, Editors

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more readable results. Additionally, a blocking profile component allows the architecture to be tested across multiple standards. Figure 1 shows a possible receiver configuration using the TITAN library module in Simulink. In addition to standard receiver blocks (LNA, RF filter, VGA, mixer, etc.), TITAN includes a Blocking Profile block that is used to specify environmental conditions. Figure 2 shows the block with its corresponding mask, used to enter parameters. A blocker profile can be specified by up to ten blocker-level, offset-frequency pairs for each side of the band of interest. Additionally, channel bandwidth, signal level, sensitivity, and noise floor are specified in this block. This block supplies the chain with the necessary information to execute the simulation and, therefore, must be the first block in the system. After the environment has been specified, the blockers and signal are cascaded through the rest of the chain as shown in Figure 3. Instead of referencing the preceding block in the chain, the blocks in TITAN have a standard I/O interface. This is an advantage over spreadsheet modeling due to the interdependence of columns for performing calculations. Data is passed through each block to the next and updated to reflect noise, distortion, gain, and any other block specific effects. This allows the designer to reconfigure the chain at will, without needing to update any of the surrounding blocks. In addition to the environmental parameters, a TITAN model includes block-specific parameters, which are shown coming into the bottom of each Receiver Block in Figure 3. Each block has a mask, which enables the designer to set these parameters. An example using the LNA mask is shown in Figure 4. In addition to noise and distortion variables, a gain profile can be specified as shown in the Gain Levels and Gain Frequencies boxes in Figure 4. Assuming that a block has constant gain across all frequencies is unrealistic; therefore, TITAN enables the
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RF Filter Antenna

Switch

LNA

Mixer

VGA

LPF

VGA2

ADC

Z Y X

Blocking Profile

Output Module 1. AFE configuration using TITAN.

Input

2. The Blocking Profile (input) block and mask.

Blockers Signal, Sensitivity BW, NF, Cascaded Distortion Block-Specific Inputs IP2, IP3, Input Referred Noise, Gain Profile, Gain Step, DC Indicators, Gain-Mode 3. TITAN data flow. Receiver Block Receiver Block Receiver Block

designer to specify a frequencydependant gain configuration. This profile is then used to apply the proper amount of gain/attenuation to blockers and signals propagating through the system by linearly interpolating between the values given in the gain profile. The ends of the gain profile are extrapolated to account for

frequencies outside of the specified profile to ensure all signals are accounted for. After the blocks have been configured, it is necessary to include the final block shown in Figure 1. The Output Module block allows the designer to specify the output of the system following simulation as shown in Figure 5.
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4. LNA mask.

6. Thermal noise, second- and third-order distortion plots.

5. Output Module mask.

TITAN can create a variety of charts and graphs of simulation results, including noise and distortion contributions for each block and blocker and signal power levels through the chain. This graphical representation of simulation results is superior to the tabular form given by spreadsheets, with the added convenience of automatic generation. This graphical format allows the designer to quickly assess the problem blocks in a design without having to further manipulate the results into a comprehensible form. Figures 68 show examples of result plots generated by the Output Module. Additionally, TITAN can create plots of the gain profiles specified for the
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7. Blocker- and signal-level plot.

LNA, VGA, and filter blocks as shown in Figure 7. The end-point extrapolation can be seen beyond 2 MHz. For those who would like to see the results displayed in a tabular fashion, a

comma-delimited text file of the results is automatically generated along with the graphs. The file can be easily imported into Excel to allow the designer to view the results in a format
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similar to that in which link-budget spreadsheets present the data. With rapid development of wireless devices and their applications, modeling of complex receiver ICs remains a challenge. As standards evolve and new semiconductor technologies emerge, tradeoffs between various design parameters like sensitivity, power consumption, speed, and cost change fundamentally. The choice of an appropriate architecture for a receiver system depends on accurate modeling of various performance parameters. Therefore, an enormous amount of resources have been dedicated by industry and academia to develop models that provide results very close to actual performance, while maintaining ease of use and reducing design time. An essential part of receiver design, link-budget analysis, provides the designer with valuable insight regarding the performance of a given architecture. For the sake of formula integrity and accurate results, it is advantageous to use

time to market and greater likelihood of a functioning IC. The TITAN library module for Simulink has been presented as an example of a tool for link-budget analysis. Many other link-budget analysis tools are available commercially, some including time-domain analysis, which is another key aspect of complete system-level receiver modeling.
8. Example filter-gain profile plot.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Excel is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Simulink is a registered trademark of The Mathworks, Inc. Jennifer Leonard is an SRC Masters Scholar and a graduate student at the Analog VLSI Lab. Mohammed Ismail is the founder and director of the Analog VLSI Lab at The Ohio State University. They can be reached at leonardj@ ee.eng.ohio-state.edu and ismail@ ee.eng.ohio-state.edu.

tools that safely hide these formulas from the designer. Besides protecting the formulas, this encapsulation also simplifies the interface so the designer is presented with only the essential system inputs. Not only should the tools provide an intuitive interface for entering system parameters but also a concise form of reporting the results of the simulation. By increasing the efficiency of simulation tools in their presentation, simulation, and reporting, the time for link-budget analysis can be decreased and ultimately result in a faster

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