A Fully Integrated RF Front-End with Independent RX/TX Matching and +20dBm Output Power for WLAN Applications

An RF front-end for a WLAN SoC is implemented in 0.18mum CMOS. It integrates a +20dBm PA, a high-sensitivity LNA, and a T/R switch. The T/R switch incorporates an impedance-transformation network to provide a receive S 11 of -15dB at 2.4GHz and a sensitivity of -73dBm for a 54Mb/s 802.11g signal. For 64QAM OFDM at 2.4GHz, the TX EVM is -25dB at an output power of +16dBm.