Abstract
Consumer electronics devices are becoming more portable and more connected. The resulting need for small form factors, low power and continuous connectivity has been driving higher levels of integration of communication circuits and a wider range of standards. The radios must be able to overcome the limitations of a low supply voltage, the dimensional scaling of the interconnect and the effect of systematic and random variations. Therefore, the design paradigm has to change from an analog or RF integrated circuit mentality toward a largely digital or “digitally assisted” chip design mentality where low yields, specialized process features and long test times are unacceptable. Furthermore, supporting a wide range of standards means that multiple radios must co-exist on the same platform, increasing constraints on radio transceiver performance. The Digital Multi-Radio project at Intel Labs has been pursuing high levels of integration through process tolerant high performance RF transceiver circuitry for the next generation of electronic devices. This talk will discuss architectural approaches to the problem and present representative results coming out of Intel Labs.
Biography
Ashoke Ravi received the B.Tech. degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA. Since 2001 he has been with Intel Labs, Hillsboro, OR, working on circuits and architectures for CMOS wireless transceivers.
