How to transform a simple in LC-VCO into complete analog RF front-ends

LC harmonic oscillators are widely used in wireless communications to generate reference signals inside the radio. In this presentation it will be shown how such structures can be transformed into complete RF front-ends with just some minor modification from the original topology. In the first part of the talk, the LC oscillator will be transformed into an RX front-end exploiting its intrinsic property to work as a mixer. Several example will be shown applied to low power applications such as GPS, ZigBee and BLE. In the second part of the talk, a Class-C LC oscillator will be merged with a power amplifier to realized a TX front-end suitable for FSK and GFSK transmitter. Measurements results on a prototype tailored to BLE application will be shown
Antonio Liscidini (S'99-M'06-SM'13) was born in Tirano, Italy, in 1977. He received the Laurea degree (summa cum laude) and PhD. in electrical engineering from the University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy, in 2002 and 2006 respectively. He was a summer intern at National Semiconductors in 2003 (Santa Clara, CA) studying poly phase filters and CMOS LNAs. From 2008 to 2012 he was assistant professor at the University of Pavia and consultant for Marvell Semiconductors in the area of integrated circuit design. Since December 2012 he is assistant professor in the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering of the University of Toronto. His research interests are in the implementations of transceivers and frequency synthesizers for cellular and ultra low power applications.

He received the Best Student Paper Award at IEEE 2005 Symposium on VLSI Circuits and the Best Invited Paper Award at 2011 IEEE Custom Integrated Circuit Conference. From 2008 to 2011, he served as Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs and he served as Guest Editor of IEEE Journal of Solid State Circuits for the special issue on ESSCIRC conference July 2013. Currently he is member of the TPC of the European Solid State Circuit Conference (ESSCIRC) and of the International Solid State Circuit Conference (ISSCC).