A low-power monolithic CMOS transceiver for 802.11b wireless LANs

A single-chip low-power transceiver IC operating in the 2.4 GHz ISM band is presented. Designed in 0.18 mu m CMOS, the transceiver system employs direct-conversion architecture for both the receiver and transmitter to realize a fully integrated wireless LAN product. A sigma-delta (Sigma Delta) fractional-N frequency synthesizer provides on-chip quadrature local oscillator frequency. Measurement results show that the receiver achieves a maximum gain of 81 dB and a noise figure of 8.2 dB, the transmitter has maximum output power of -3.4 dBm and RMS EVM of 6.8%. Power dissipation of the transceiver is 74 mW in the receiving mode and 81 mW in the transmitting mode under a supply voltage of 1.8 V, including 30 mW consumed by the frequency synthesizer. The total chip area with pads is 2.7 x 4.2 mm(2).