Here, the four basic characteristics of radio frequency circuits will be interpreted from four aspects: radio frequency interface, small desired signal, large interference signal, and adjacent channel interference, and the important factors that need special attention in the PCB design process are given.

Radio frequency interface of radio frequency circuit simulation

The wireless transmitter and receiver are conceptually divided into two parts: base frequency and radio frequency. The fundamental frequency includes the frequency range of the input signal of the transmitter and the frequency range of the output signal of the receiver. The bandwidth of the fundamental frequency determines the fundamental rate at which data can flow in the system. The base frequency is used to improve the reliability of the data stream and reduce the load imposed by the transmitter on the transmission medium under a specific data transmission rate. Therefore, a lot of signal processing engineering knowledge is required when designing a fundamental frequency circuit on a PCB. The radio frequency circuit of the transmitter can convert and up-convert the processed baseband signal to a designated channel, and inject this signal into the transmission medium. On the contrary, the radio frequency circuit of the receiver can obtain the signal from the transmission medium, and convert and reduce the frequency to the base frequency.
Transmitter has two main PCB design goals: The first is that they must transmit a specific power while consuming the least power possible. The second is that they cannot interfere with the normal operation of transceivers in adjacent channels. As far as the receiver is concerned, there are three main PCB design goals: first, they must accurately restore small signals; second, they must be able to remove interfering signals outside the desired channel; and last, like the transmitter, they must consume power Very small.

Big interference signal of radio frequency circuit simulation

The receiver must be very sensitive to small signals, even when there are large interference signals (obstructions). This situation occurs when trying to receive a weak or long-distance transmission signal, and a powerful transmitter nearby is broadcasting in an adjacent channel. The interfering signal may be 60 to 70 dB larger than the expected signal, and it can be covered in a large amount during the input phase of the receiver, or the receiver can generate excessive noise during the input phase to block the reception of normal signals. If the receiver is driven into a non-linear region by the interference source during the input stage, the above two problems will occur. To avoid these problems, the front end of the receiver must be very linear.
Therefore, “linearity” is also an important consideration in PCB design of the receiver. Since the receiver is a narrowband circuit, the nonlinearity is measured by measuring “intermodulation distortion”. This involves using two sine waves or cosine waves with similar frequencies and located in the center band to drive the input signal, and then measuring the product of its intermodulation. Generally speaking, SPICE is a time-consuming and cost-intensive simulation software, because it has to perform many loop calculations to get the required frequency resolution to understand the distortion.

Small expected signal in RF circuit simulation

The receiver must be very sensitive to detect small input signals. Generally speaking, the input power of the receiver can be as small as 1 μV. The sensitivity of the receiver is limited by the noise generated by its input circuit. Therefore, noise is an important consideration in the PCB design of the receiver. Moreover, the ability to predict noise with simulation tools is indispensable. Figure 1 is a typical superheterodyne receiver. The received signal is filtered first, and then the input signal is amplified by a low noise amplifier (LNA). Then use the first local oscillator (LO) to mix with this signal to convert this signal into an intermediate frequency (IF). The noise performance of the front-end circuit mainly depends on the LNA, mixer and LO. Although the traditional SPICE noise analysis can find the noise of the LNA, it is useless for the mixer and LO, because the noise in these blocks will be seriously affected by the large LO signal.
A small input signal requires the receiver to have a great amplification function, and usually requires a gain of 120 dB. With such a high gain, any signal coupled from the output end back to the input end may cause problems. The important reason for using the superheterodyne receiver architecture is that it can distribute the gain in several frequencies to reduce the chance of coupling. This also makes the frequency of the first LO differ from the frequency of the input signal, which can prevent large interference signals from being “contaminated” to small input signals.
For different reasons, in some wireless communication systems, direct conversion or homodyne architecture can replace superheterodyne architecture. In this architecture, the RF input signal is directly converted to the fundamental frequency in a single step. Therefore, most of the gain is in the fundamental frequency, and the frequency of the LO and the input signal is the same. In this case, the influence of a small amount of coupling must be understood, and a detailed model of the “stray signal path” must be established, such as: coupling through the substrate, package pins, and bonding wires (Bondwire) between the coupling, and the coupling through the power line.

Adjacent channel interference in radio frequency circuit simulation

Distortion also plays an important role in the transmitter. The non-linearity generated by the transmitter in the output circuit may spread the bandwidth of the transmitted signal in adjacent channels. This phenomenon is called “spectral regrowth”. Before the signal reaches the transmitter’s power amplifier (PA), its bandwidth is limited; but the “intermodulation distortion” in the PA will cause the bandwidth to increase again. If the bandwidth is increased too much, the transmitter will not be able to meet the power requirements of its adjacent channels. When transmitting digitally modulated signals, in fact, SPICE cannot be used to predict the further growth of the spectrum. Because the transmission of about 1,000 symbols (symbol) must be simulated to obtain a representative spectrum, and high-frequency carrier waves must be combined, which will make SPICE transient analysis impractical.