RF Circuit Design, Second Edition [Paperback]

Christopher Bowick (Author), Cheryl Ajluni (Author), John Blyler (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0750685182 | ISBN-13: 978-0750685184 | Publication Date: November 2, 2007 | Edition: 2

It's Back! New chapters, examples, and insights; all infused with the timeless concepts and theories that have helped RF engineers for the past 25 years!

RF circuit design is now more important than ever as we find ourselves in an increasingly wireless world. Radio is the backbone of today's wireless industry with protocols such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, WiMax, and ZigBee. Most, if not all, mobile devices have an RF component and this book tells the reader how to design and integrate that component in a very practical fashion. This book has been updated to include today's integrated circuit (IC) and system-level design issues as well as keeping its classic "wire lead" material.

Design Concepts and Tools Include

.The Basics: Wires, Resistors, Capacitors, Inductors
.Resonant Circuits: Resonance, Insertion Loss
.Filter Design: High-pass, Bandpass, Band-rejection
.Impedance Matching: The L Network, Smith Charts, Software Design Tools
.Transistors: Materials, Y Parameters, S Parameters
.Small Signal RF Amplifier: Transistor Biasing, Y Parameters, S Parameters
.RF Power Amplifiers: Automatic Shutdown Circuitry , Broadband Transformers, Practical Winding Hints
.RF Front-End: Architectures, Software-Defined Radios, ADC's Effects
.RF Design Tools: Languages, Flow, Modeling


Check out this book's companion Web site at: http://books.elsevier.com/9780750685184 for full-color Smith Charts and extra content!

*Completely updated but still contains its classic timeless information
*Two NEW chapters on RF Front-End Design and RF Design Tools
*Not overly math intensive, perfect for the working RF and digital professional that need to build analog-RF-Wireless circuits

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

It's Back! New chapters, examples, and insights; all infused with the timeless concepts and theories that have helped RF engineers for the past 25 years!

RF circuit design is now more important than ever as we find ourselves in an increasingly wireless world. Radio is the backbone of today's wireless industry with protocols such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, WiMax, and ZigBee. Most, if not all, mobile devices have an RF component and this book tells the reader how to design and integrate that component in a very practical fashion. This book has been updated to include today's integrated circuit (IC) and system-level design issues as well as keeping its classic "wire lead" material.

Design Concepts and Tools Include

.The Basics: Wires, Resistors, Capacitors, Inductors
.Resonant Circuits: Resonance, Insertion Loss
.Filter Design: High-pass, Bandpass, Band-rejection
.Impedance Matching: The L Network, Smith Charts, Software Design Tools
.Transistors: Materials, Y Parameters, S Parameters
.Small Signal RF Amplifier: Transistor Biasing, Y Parameters, S Parameters
.RF Power Amplifiers: Automatic Shutdown Circuitry , Broadband Transformers, Practical Winding Hints
.RF Front-End: Architectures, Software-Defined Radios, ADC's Effects
.RF Design Tools: Languages, Flow, Modeling


Check out this book's companion Web site at: http://books.elsevier.com/9780750685184 for full-color Smith Charts and extra content!

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Newnes; 2 edition (November 2, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0750685182
• ISBN-13: 978-0750685184
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #43,890 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Updating a classic, November 7, 2008

By 

Gary Ray (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: RF Circuit Design, Second Edition (Paperback)

RF design can either be understood from first principles through Maxwell's equations (wave theory) or from circuit analysis through the basic passive and active electronic components. This book takes the latter approach because it is much easier and far more practical for building actual circuits. Also the mathematics can be held to a minimum with this approach. One of the main reasons the first edition of this book was so popular was the emphasis on reading and understanding Smith charts. This provides a very quick visual entry into RF design without the heavy emphasis on differential equations and boundary conditions.

The book under review is the second edition, which updates the (now more than 25 years old) first edition with two new chapters on RF Front-End Design (chapter 8) and RF Design Tools (chapter 9). Chapter 8 covers modern radio front-end design including sections on intermodulation, receiver architecture and software defined radios. Chapter 9 gives an overview of design tools before going into a detailed case study of IEEE 802.11a in CMOS using Analog Office software.

It is instructive to see both how many things have changed and yet how the basic principles have remained the same. Even though the individual NPN transistors mentioned in the original chapters are long gone (replaced by highly integrated op-amps and LNAs), the passive components are still used in designs every day. And the transistor design issues (S parameters, transistor biasing) still apply today in the multi-GHz range just as they did in the MHz range a quarter of a century ago. Today's integrated designs might include an on-chip inductor created with rectangular traces wrapped into a "coil" instead of an actual physical coil and on-chip capacitors and resistors, but the principles remain the same. In fact, the performance of passive on-chip capacitors and inductors is normally orders of magnitude worse than is required for high performance designs. Thus the physical components are still widely used today.

There are a number of RF circuit design topics missing from this book, including oscillators, distributed elements, microstrip and slot line designs for GHz ranges and advanced integrated circuit topics for CMOS and GaAs radio design, but these would not fit into an introductory text such as this one. Another item the book doesn't emphasize is the wide variety of online tools available now for RF designers. The website http://rf.rficdesign.com/ has consolidated a number of links to free tools covering many aspects of RF design mentioned in this book, including a Pi Network calculator, S parameter utility and Smith chart Java tool.

In conclusion, this book is ideal for either the RF design hobbyist or professional digital designer who needs to design front end circuits without going back to school. The book has a companion website with high resolution versions of many of the Smith charts in the book, http://books.elsevier.com/companions/defaultindividual.asp?isbn=9780750685184

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars practical and in English, August 26, 2010

By 

C. Crapotta - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: RF Circuit Design, Second Edition (Paperback)

I've searched for a practical book on the subject, and written well in clear English. I recognize that it may not be profound(theoretical)enough for some readers, but I think that practical application was the authors' focus.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Concise and understandable, September 2, 2011

By 

Flying Finn - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: RF Circuit Design, Second Edition (Paperback)

If you need to understand the Smith Chart this book explains it very well. It is the reason I purchased it.