This research aims to design a dual-conversion tuner RFIC for DVB-H applications with EDA tools. In order to have good understanding of the EDA tools used, both time-domain and frequency-domain simulation techniques are studied and discussed in this thesis. The designed tuner RFIC is implemented by a TSMC 0.35£gm SiGe BiCMOS process. The parasitic effects from PCB interconnects are also considered in this work. We use 3-D quasi-static EM simulation tool to extract the parasitic elements for PCB interconnects, and co-simulate these parasitic elements with RFICs using circuit simulation tool. The implemented tuner RFIC integrates most key components into a single chip, including the variable-gain low noise amplifier, up-converting mixer, intermediate-frequency amplifier, and down-converting mixer. Under QPSK modulation test, the designed tuner RFIC shows a wide dynamic range with good protection ratio. In addition, it has a low power consumption and thus is suitable for use in portable digital TV equipments.

This thesis consists of two parts. Part one includes the design procedure and implementation of the building blocks for an RF tuner module used in the Digital Video Broadcasting ¡V Terrestrial ¡]DVB-T¡^system. It contains the comparison of several RF tuner architectures, frequency planning, and link-budget analysis. Measurement results for the designed tuner operating in the frequency range from 50 to 860 MHz show that the maximum power gain ranges from 49 to 57.6 dB. The entire range for gain control is over 60 dB. In the maximum gain state, the noise figure ranges form 6.8 to 11.5 dB, the output third-order interception point¡]OIP3¡^ranges from 11.7 to 13.8 dBm, and the image rejection is over 50 dB. By applying the simplified single-carrier modulation signals, the tuner can pass the DVB-T system specifications with respect to the adjacent-channel and overlapping-channel protection ratios. In part two, an RFIC design for low-noise variable-gain amplifier that can be used in the RF front end of DVB-T system is presented. It operates from 100 to 900 MHz and dissipates 59.4 mW under a 3.3-V power supply. In the maximum gain state, measurement results for this RFIC show that the noise figure is less than 4 dB, the maximum gain is more than 14 dB, and the OIP3 is about 6.8dBm. The entire gain control range is over 40 dB.