Spring 2021 – EEL4461 Antenna Systems/eEL5462 Advanced Antenna Systems
Instructor: Prof. Jenshan Lin
This course will have both undergraduate and graduate sections, as well as an EDGE section. See the ONE.UF course schedule for details.
Fall 2020 – EEE6374 RF Circuits and Systems
Instructor: Prof. Jenshan Lin
After serving as a program director at National Science Foundation for four years, Dr. Lin returned back to teaching and research at UF. He will be teaching this course again and share his knowledge and experience (30 years in industry, academia, and government) of wireless research and development covering multiple aspects from spectrum regulation and standards to physical layer transceiver hardware and design specs. The objective is to let students learn how the wireless system standards evolved, how to design a transceiver satisfying system specifications, how the spectrum regulations affect the wireless technology development, and what to expect in the future of wireless technologies and applications.
The course will cover the following topics:
RF Overview – Definition of RF and FCC Regulations
Spectrum Regulation and Future Trend
RF Propagation and Antennas
Wireless Standards
Digital Modulations
RF System-Level Specifications
Noise and Linearity in Receiver
RF Transceiver Architectures
RFIC Specifications and Case Study
Overview of RFIC Technologies, Packaging, and System Integration
Emerging Applications
The course is about system level design and the effect on circuit specifications, not transistor level circuit design. Many RFIC designers designed the circuits without knowing where the specifications came from and how they were defined. On the other hand, a wireless system put together by a system engineer without knowing the insights of each component might not have the optimized performance. Moreover, a system engineer might give more stringent specifications to circuit designers, which could result in more power consumption and higher cost.
As RFIC design evolves from component-level building blocks to system-level integration, RFIC design and RF system design merge. Therefore, it is crucial for RFIC designers to have system-level knowledge and for RF system designers to know limitations of RF components.
This graduate-level course was developed to bridge the gap between RFIC design and RF system design. It covers a wide range of RF system aspects described above. In particular, it links RFIC design specifications and system requirements defined in wireless standards. In addition to learning the tradeoffs among different transceiver architectures and an overall picture of RFIC and wireless communication systems, one of the course objectives is to let students learn how to derive RFIC specifications from wireless communication standards. A reference design is used as an example.
Whether it is system-on-chip or system-in-package approach, the trend of RF design is moving toward integrated system design. This course prepares the students to take on the new challenges.