System Level design and simulation of a

Bluetooth receiver

Jos Luis Gonzlez
Electronic Engineering Department, UPC

January, 18
th
2005


This material is partially based on the Ph.D. thesis dissertation of Federico Beffa: A
Low-Power CMOS Bluetooth Transceiver, Diss. ETH No. 15303, Swiss Federal
Institute of Technology, 2003.





I. INTRODUCTION

System level design of wireless communication circuits steams from the standard
specification and general regulations. The design process can be outlined as follows:

1. Choose architecture (or set of architecture candidates)
2. Extract system level parameters from the standard specifications
3. Assign block level RF parameters to the blocks of the receiver,
transmitter and frequency synthesizer to fulfil system level parameters
(System level design exploration/optimization)
4. Design blocks at circuit level to fulfil block level RF parameters.
5. Extract system level parameters from circuit level description of blocks
and verify the design.

Usually steps 3 to 5 are run subsequently in several optimization loops including in the
analysis other variables as cost, size and power consumption.

Some of the standard specifications require including in the simulation and verification
loops the baseband section of the communication protocol. Additionally, system level
design is completed with laboratory measurement on prototype test benches, since all
the communications systems must pass a official certification process before being
deployed to the final users. Fig. 1 displays schematically the most common system,
circuit, integration and verification challenges that have to be faced during the design of
RF communication integrated circuits.


Fig.1 Communication systems design challenges

This document illustrates with an example the design procedure corresponding to the
upper left corner of fig. 1: RF system level design.


II. BLUETOOTH RADIO: FROM STANDARD TO SYSTEM LEVEL PARAMETERS

We have chosen Bluetooth for this example because it is a relatively simple radio and
there exist abundant documentation and literature about it. Bluetooth uses a simple
binary GFSK modulation and FH-TDD access. There is no necessity to sense the media
before transmitting, which simplifies the design of the physical layer of the protocol and
makes it very independent of the baseband. Bluetooth accepts three transmitted output
power classes. Power control is optional and usually not required. This simplifies
further more the design of the transmitter.

Concerning the system architecture, the standard specifications can be easily translated
to independent specifications of the receiver, the transmitter and the frequency
synthesizer.

Output power level and emission restrictions affect only to the Tx design.
Minimum signal power (sensitivity), BER and interference specifications affect
only to the Rx design.
Frequency purity and stability affect only to the design of the frequency
synthesizer.

In the following a detailed calculation of the main system level parameters for a
Bluetooth transceiver.

II.1 Receiver specifications

A) Sensitivity: the Bluetooth standard specifies that a -70 dBm signal (P
min
) should be
correctly demodulated with a 0.1% or error probability (BER). This depends on the
noise and gain of the receiver chain and on the detector/demodulator type. For a sub-
optimum demodulator a BER of 0.1% (10
-3
) is obtained for signal to noise ration (SNR)
larger or equal than 18 dB for a modulation index of 0.32, and 19 dB for modulation
index of 0.28 [ref]. This SNR is used to calculate the noise figure (NF) required for the
receiver chain:


= =
= =
min
10log( ) 10log( )
70 ( 174) 60 19 25 dB
NF P kT BW SNR
, (1)

where k is Boltzmanns constant (1.380710
-23
J/K), T is the temperature in Kelvin, and
BW is the Bluetooth channel bandwidth, 1 MHz. Sometimes, a lower P
min
is used to take
into account fading and other attenuations. This leads to a larger NF for the receiver.
The increase in receiver sensitivity can be compensated with a better
detector/demodulator. Fig. 2 illustrates an alternate NF calculation using a P
min
= -70
dBm and a detector that requires 21 dB of SNR (labelled C/N in the figure) to achieve a
0.1% BER. In this case, the NF requirement is more stringent.


Fig.2 Bluetooth receiver NF calculation.


B) Linearity: A Bluetooth radio has to be able to detect a signal of f
o
with -64 dBm with
a maximum BER of 0.1% in the presence of two -39 dBm interferences placed at
adjacent channels. For a low IF implementation, two interfering signals, one k channels
and the other 2k channels from the desired signal, causes an intermodulation product to
fall at the frequency of the desired signal. These signals generate 3
rd
order
intermodulation products (IM3). The correct demodulation of the wanted signal along
with the IM3 products appearing at the same frequency sets a limit to the IIP3 (or
equivalently the OIP3) of the receiver.

We want the IM3 products to be 19 dB below the wanted signal: this is the SNR
required by the detector to achieve a 0.1% BER. Fig. 3 illustrates how the IIP3is related
to the desired signal and interference signals levels and to the SNR. From triangulation
on this figure, it is easy to calculate IIP3 value: it has to be -17 dBm.



Fig.3 Third order intercept point specification.

Explanation: the desired signal characteristic has a slope of 1. Therefore, the base of the
larger triangle is x+SNR, being x=IIP3 (-64 dBm) The smaller triangle base has to be
1/3 of the base of the larger triangle since its hypotenuse has a slope of 1/3. This base is
IIP3 (-39 dBm). We can write the equation:

( ) + 3 64 dBm+SNR = 3 IIP3+39 dBm IIP , (2)

which for SNR = 19 dB gives IIP3 = -17 dBm.

Another effect of non linearity is blocking. The receiver could be blocked by a single
interference signal depending on the following parameters:

Total selectivity of the channel filters
Image rejection
Compression point of the blocks of the receiver
Phase noise characteristic of the receiver

We will calculate all this parameters to avoid blocking by fulfilling the Bluetooth
specifications about interferences level shown in Fig. 4.


Fig.4 Bluetooth standard blocking specifications.

C) VCO phase noise: due to the phase noise sidebands of the VCO, any interference
falling at an offset f from the desired channel frequency will be folded back to the
desired channel with attenuation proportional to the phase noise of th VCO at offset f
from the fundamental, namely L(f). This process is illustrated in Fig. 5.


Fig.5 Adjacent channels mixing due to VCO phase noise sideband.

The carrier to interference ratios (C/I) for adjacent channel and co-channel interferences
of Fig. 4 can be used to calculate the limit for the L(f) at different adjacent channels
index:


_
( ) / / 10log( )
ch i co ch
f C I C I BW

= L , (3)

where BW is the noise bandwidth, equivalent to the channel bandwidth of 1 MHz, and
C/I
co-ch
is specified to be larger or equal than 11 dB. Table 1 shows the required L(f) to
fulfil all the C/I specifications for in-band interferences.

TABLE I
VCO phase noise specification
i Offset f
L(f)
1 1 MHz -71 dBc/Hz
2 2 MHz -101 dBc/Hz
3 3 MHz -111 dBc/Hz


D) Selectivity of channel filter: Any signal in the pass band of the filter will be
considered as a desired signal. Therefore, the attenuation in the stop band should be
enough to avoid that any interference in adjacent channels affects the detected signal.
Therefore, the attenuations of the filter must fulfil the blocking interference mask
displayed in Fig. 4. From the data in this figure and considering that any interference
signal attenuated by the channel filter must fulfil the co-channel interference
specification the attenuation mask of the channel filter can be calculated (see Table II).

TABLE II
Channel filter specification
Offset from centre frequency Attenuation
1 MHz 11 dB
2 MHz 41 dB
3 MHz 51 dB

E) Image rejection: the Bluetooth standard specification states that a signal of -67 dBm
must be detected with a maximal 0.1% BER when a signal of -58 dBm is applied at the
image frequency. This signal will be downconverted by the mixer exactly at the same
frequency than the desired signal. Therefore, the downconverted image signal must
have 11 dB less power than the desired signal (this is the co-channel interference
Bluetooth specification). This means that the total image rejection of the receiver must
reach -58 dBm + 11 dBm (-67 dBm), which yields to a minimum of 20 dB of image
rejection.

F) Gain compression: the Bluetooth standard specification for the maximum received
signal is -20 dBm. This is translated directly to the total -1 dB compression point of the
receiver. Therefore, the whole receiver chain must be linear up to input signal levels of
-19 dBm, and this is the gain compression specification for the whole receiver.


Summary of System Level Specifications:

Noise Figure: NF = 25 dB
Linearity: IIP3 = -17 dBm
VCO phase noise: L(1 MHz, 2 MHz, 3MHz) = -71, -101, -111 dBc/Hz
Channel filter: (see Table II).
Image rejection: 20 dB
Compression: 1 db CP = -19 dBm

II.2 Transmitter specifications

The relevant requirements for the design of the transmitter are output power level,
modulation accuracy, and spurious emissions. Bluetooth units are subdivided in three
power classes. For example, in the implementation of a class 2 device whose nominal
output power is 0 dBm a power control is not required and the emitted power is allowed
to be between -6 dBm and 4 dBm.

In order to avoid disturbing other Bluetooth units or other radio systems, spurious
transmitter emissions should be minimized. Fig. 6 shows the maximum in-band and out-
of-band spurious emission levels permitted by the standard. The specifications at 500
kHz (drawn in gray) are relative to the carrier power, all other specifications (drawn in
black) are absolute power levels. The standard admits up to three in-band exceptions.
The specifications of Fig. 6 should be used to optimize the power level and the linearity
characteristics demanded to the transmitter than can be characterized using the ACPR
metric. This performance will be mainly determined by the linearity of the power
amplifier.


Fig.6 Bluetooth spurious emission mask.

The modulation characteristics are specified in terms of modulation index tolerance,
carrier frequency stability and drift rate. The nominal modulation index is 0.32,
however, in order to allow low-cost implementations, it may range between 0.28 and
0.35. The initial carrier frequency must be within 75 kHz from the nominal channel
frequency. In addition, during transmission of a packet, the centre frequency is admitted
to drift by 25 kHz in a one slot packet and by 40 kHz in a three or five slot packet.
The maximum permitted instantaneous drift rate is 400 Hz/s. All this specifications are
translated to the design of the frequency synthesizer that will not be boarded here.


III. SYSTEM LEVEL EXPLORATION

Once the system level parameters for the receiver, transmitter and frequency synthesizer
have been derived from the standard specifications, the architectures of such sub-
systems and their blocks specifications should be determined.

III.1 Receiver architecture

Architecture selection is usually done concurrently with system level exploration. For
Bluetooth the best choice is usually a low IF architecture: it allows for integration of the
channel filter and most of the passive elements and avoid the DC offset problems of a
zero IF architecture (direct conversion). The most important drawback of this
architecture is that image frequency fall in-band, and therefore it is not affected by the
RF filter. Several techniques are available to suppress the image frequency in the
receiver (LNA with tuneable notch, weaver or Hartley mixer architectures or complex
polyphase filter at IF, where both channel filtering and image rejection are done with
the same circuit). In the example below (fig. 7), a low IF architecture with a Hartley
structure to reject the image is used. The IF is 2 MHz and the IF strip is implemented
with a gm-C filter.


Fig.7 Bluetooth receiver architecture.


The first step in the system level exploration consist on assigning gain, noise figure and
linearity to each one of the blocks of the receiver to fulfil the system level
specifications. This is commonly called spreadsheet calculations. There are some
software utilities that can be used to automatically perform this step of the design
process. Table III presents a tentative block level specification for the receiver
architecture shown in fig. 7, i.e., the receiver plan.



TABLE III
Receiver Plan
RF Filter LNA Mixer IF Strip
Gain (dB) -2 12 10 60
NF (dB) 2 5 18 30
IIP3 (dBm) -5.21 6.79 16.79
1db Cp (dBm) -15.21 3.21 6.79

Using a Spread-Sheet calculation program the block specifications presented in
Table III are verified. As shown in fig. 8, the spread-sheet indicates a total NF close to
25 dB, an overall IIP3 of -17.18 dBm and an overall input compression point of -24.45
dBm. Comparing these results with the system level specifications, only the 1dB CP is
not fulfilled. Since the IIP3 and the 1dB CP of each block are usually related if a 3
rd

order polynomial is a appropriate model for its nonlinearity, there is also a relation
between both: IIP3 1db CP +9.6 dB. For this reason the IIP3 and 1dB CP of each
block can not be set independently to fulfil simultaneously the overall receiver IIP3 and
compression specifications.



Fig.8 Bluetooth receiver spread-sheet calculation with SysCalc.

The spread sheet calculation performed above does not takes into account mismatching
between the input and output impedances of subsequent stages. However, it is a good
staring point before going to more detailed system level simulation of the architecture.
From the information provided by the spread sheet tool we verify that a sensitivity of
-70 dBm is achieved when a demodulator/detector with 19 dB of SNR for a 1e-3 BER is
used.

The second step in the design process usually involves introducing the architecture in a
system level simulation tool (like PTOLEMY or ADS from Agilent and SpectreRF or
SPW from Cadence) to verify other performances that require either single tone, dual
tone or modulated signal inputs. The two first types of tests require an analog simulator
(ADS or SpectreRF), whereas the third type requires a time-domain simulator based on
numerical sequences (e.g. PTOLEMY or MATLAB) linked to the analog simulator (a
procedure called co-simulation). These simulation tools are used to refine the
specifications of the receiver blocks prior to the circuit level design. Once the process is
completed, the system level designers are able to provide a detailed data-sheet to the
circuit level designers with the specifications the circuit they will design need to fulfil.

However, an important question arises: which are the reasonable values that would be
possible to implement at circuit level? The process of system-level and circuit-level
design can not be done independently if unrealistic circuit level specifications have to
be avoided. In the same sense, circuit level without any previous system level analysis
would lead to designs that fail to fulfil the standard specifications or system level
requirements. This is why it is so important for integrated communication system
designers to acquire skills both in the system level and in the circuit level.