High-frequency technology

High-frequency semiconductor devices: diodes and transistors. Different semiconductors, band-gap and carrier mobility. Amplifier operating point, classes A,B,C. S-parameters. Amplifier stability. Amplifier thermal noise. Noise figure. Noise measurements. Amplifier saturation, definition of P1dB. Inter-modulation distortion, IMD intercept point. Non-linear high-frequency circuits: mixer and limiter. Lumped LC and cavity electrical filters. Piezoelectric mechanical resonators, quartz crystals and SAW devices. Electrical oscillators. Short-term and long-term stability. Oscillator phase noise. Frequency synthesizers. Phase-locked loops, loop stability and phase noise. Implementation of radio transmitters. Basic designs of radio receivers: homodyne, heterodyne and zero intermediate-frequency designs. Carrier and clock recovery in radio receivers.

Learning specific circuit components and systems for high frequencies. Learning specific methods of measurements, analysis and synthesis of high-frequency circuits. Learning fundamental system knowledge of radio communications.

Lectures to explain the theoretical background and laboratory experiments to practically confirm the theory in the spirit of team work.