A 900 MHz CMOS frequency-hopped spread-spectrum RF transmitter IC

Abstract

This paper reports on the first monolithic CMOS RF transmitter, which is part of a complete low-power transceiver operating in the 902-928 MHz ISM frequency band. The system can transmit data at rates up to 160 kb/s by frequency-shift keying a carrier which is periodically hopped according to a pseudorandom code across 26 MHz. The key elements to accomplish this in the transmitter are: an agile baseband frequency synthesizer, a low-noise 915 MHz local oscillator, upconversion mixers, some needed RF filters, and a power amplifier. All these elements are integrated on a 1-/spl mu/m CMOS IC.