A Design Methodology for Highly-Integrated Low-Power Receivers for Wireless Communications

Dennis Gee-Wai Yee, 2001 Ph.D. (advisor: Robert Brodersen).

Due to its potential to offer ubiquitous information access, wireless connectivity is playing an increasingly significant role in communications systems. The success of future wireless systems will depend heavily on their ability to provide high capacity while maintaining low cost, small form factor, and low power consumption in the portable devices. However, many existing commercial transceivers are expensive, consist of a large number of discrete components, and exhibit moderate to high levels of power consumption. One possible explanation for these inefficient solutions lies in the historically unilateral relationship between system designers and hardware designers. An efficient solution requires a design strategy which tightly incorporates implementation issues throughout the process of defining the system specifications.